Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1086 - The 5 Marriage I Don'ts [R]

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#1086 - The 5 Marriage I Don'ts [R] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:04
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
0:07
Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
0:10
Speaker 2: once answers. Now.
0:14
Speaker 1: So I've just finished reading book, Kylie. It's called Get Married.
0:18
Speaker 1: Get Married is the like just picking it up and
0:20
Speaker 1: looking at it. Get Married. It's a provocative title for
0:23
Speaker 1: a book. Get Married by a University of Virginia sociologist.
0:26
Speaker 1: He's also the lead researcher on a project in the
0:29
Speaker 1: United States called the National Marriage Project. His name is
0:31
Speaker 1: Professor Brad Wilcox.
0:34
Speaker 2: It's interesting that that's the title of his book when
0:37
Speaker 2: my understanding is that marriage numbers are declining.
0:42
Speaker 1: They actually are across the Western world. Fewer people are
0:44
Speaker 1: getting married. Partnering is as popular as ever. But making
0:49
Speaker 1: the commitment to sign up for a lifetime of monogamy,
0:53
Speaker 1: I thought.
0:53
Speaker 2: You want to say misery, no, no, no monogamy.
0:56
Speaker 1: In fact, well, here's the interesting thing about the book.
0:59
Speaker 1: The research that if you can have a happy, safe,
1:02
Speaker 1: supportive marriage, it's the golden ticket to happiness. It's one
1:06
Speaker 1: of the best predictors. In fact, it is the best
1:08
Speaker 1: predictor of happiness in our lives. Check this out. I
1:12
Speaker 1: found something just finding the stat here. The odds of
1:15
Speaker 1: being very happy increased by sixty four percent if you
1:18
Speaker 1: have a college degree of those who don't. In other words,
1:21
Speaker 1: people who have a university degree a sixty four percent
1:24
Speaker 1: more likely to be very happy than those without the degree. Oh,
1:28
Speaker 1: by the way, I should just highlight I'm about to
1:30
Speaker 1: say a whole lot of provocative stuff. I'm not in
1:31
Speaker 1: a soap box here, I'm just looking at pure stats. Okay.
1:34
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that if you don't have a university
1:36
Speaker 1: degree you can't be happy. It just means that the
1:39
Speaker 1: odds are being very happy go up by sixty four
1:42
Speaker 1: percent if you've got that degree. Plenty of people with
1:44
Speaker 1: degrees are miserable, and plenty of people without degrees are
1:46
Speaker 1: wonderfully happy. This is just on average, statistically, that's how
1:49
Speaker 1: it goes. Odds of being very happy with higher income
1:53
Speaker 1: increased by eighty eight percent. If you're very satisfied with
1:58
Speaker 1: your work, the odds of being very happy increased by
2:00
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty five percent. Of those who are
2:02
Speaker 1: not happy with their work, the odds are being very
2:05
Speaker 1: happy increase by one hundred and fifty one percent if
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Speaker 1: you're married over those who are not married. But get this,
2:14
Speaker 1: if you are in a very happy marriage compared to
2:17
Speaker 1: those who are not married. To those who are not
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Speaker 1: in a happy marriage, the odds are being very happy
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Speaker 1: increased by five hundred and forty five percent. Marriage predicts
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Speaker 1: happiness better than education, better than work, better than money.
2:29
Speaker 1: It's an astounding stat.
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Speaker 2: So how do you do the mass on something like that.
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Speaker 1: I like, it's a big number.
2:37
Speaker 2: I'm struggling with my words because I'm actually looking at
2:39
Speaker 2: the graph, and when you look at it pictorially, you've
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Speaker 2: got a teeny tiny little blue line down here for
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Speaker 2: sixty four percent, and then it's like having a I
2:50
Speaker 2: don't know, two hundred story building right next to it.
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Speaker 2: This five hundred and fifty five percent, five hundred and
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Speaker 2: forty five sorry, h five hundred and forty five percent
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Speaker 2: better chance of being very happy.
3:03
Speaker 1: So simple way of looking at this is they simply
3:06
Speaker 1: ask people whether well being is up to and then
3:09
Speaker 1: they look at their various sociodemographic statistics. So, are you married,
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Speaker 1: you're not married, what sort of education level do you have?
3:16
Speaker 1: All those kinds of things, and they literally just look
3:18
Speaker 1: at the odds of scoring in the very high range
3:22
Speaker 1: based on what those boxes are that you ticked and
3:24
Speaker 1: so if you've ticked that box and said I'm in
3:26
Speaker 1: a very happy marriage, the odds of you being very
3:29
Speaker 1: happy are five and a half times greater than the
3:34
Speaker 1: likelihood of you being happy if you're not in a
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Speaker 1: very happy marriage.
3:38
Speaker 2: That's it.
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Speaker 1: It's it's actually pretty basic stats. But the truth of
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Speaker 1: it is that we don't do maths very well and
3:44
Speaker 1: we're really bad with probabilities, and as a result, when
3:47
Speaker 1: we look at these numbers, they can often not make
3:49
Speaker 1: much sense. The other thing is it's kind of a
3:51
Speaker 1: provocative and confronting thing to hear. Now again, I want
3:54
Speaker 1: to emphasize there are people who are not in happy
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Speaker 1: marriages that can be happy. There are people who are
3:58
Speaker 1: not married that are wonderfully happy. I know plenty of
4:00
Speaker 1: married people who are kind of miserable.
4:02
Speaker 2: As well, people who've got lots of money.
4:04
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So this is not just about the one
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Speaker 1: fact that what it's looking at, quite simply, very simply
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Speaker 1: is if you're in a good marriage, if you're in
4:13
Speaker 1: a very happy marriage, you're much more likely to be
4:15
Speaker 1: a happy person. So it's not about shaming anyone. It's
4:18
Speaker 1: not about judging anyone. It's not about pointing fingers and
4:20
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. These stats just point in that direction.
4:23
Speaker 1: Here's another stat for you while we're on it. Children
4:25
Speaker 1: who are raised in homes where parents are married are
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Speaker 1: much more likely to go to university. They're much more
4:30
Speaker 1: likely to stay off drugs, They're much more likely to
4:32
Speaker 1: be financially stable, they're more likely to generally stay out
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Speaker 1: of trouble. Intact families just an enormous increase in the
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Speaker 1: positive outcomes versus other families. Now, of course, there are
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Speaker 1: plenty of kids that come from alternative and diverse families
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Speaker 1: that have wonderful outcomes. It's just that you get more
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Speaker 1: positive outcomes with intact families where a couple are happily married.
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Speaker 1: One more stat. This is a really interesting one. People
5:01
Speaker 1: who are married tend to enjoy much greater financial benefits
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Speaker 1: than those who are not, even if you're living in
5:08
Speaker 1: a live in de facto relationship.
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Speaker 2: So I find this interesting because as parents with dependent children,
5:16
Speaker 2: it feels like the financial strain is intense.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a two thousand and seven survey
5:23
Speaker 1: of consumer finance looked at the median net worth of
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Speaker 1: households with children by family structure and what they found
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Speaker 1: was that the people who were doing the very best
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Speaker 1: were married and intact median net worth two hundred and
5:36
Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand, two hundred dollars. Now, this start is
5:38
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, but we see continued evidence of this.
5:43
Speaker 1: Married in a step family, that two hundred and twenty
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Speaker 1: eight drops down to ninety six thousand, divorced, thirty two thousand,
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Speaker 1: cohabiting eighty nine hundred. I mean, the number just drops
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Speaker 1: precipitously from that two hundred and twenty eight thousand. Again,
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Speaker 1: this is net worth, and we're going back fifteen years.
6:01
Speaker 1: But what research does show is that men who are
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Speaker 1: married earn twenty seven percent more than when they're unmarried.
6:07
Speaker 1: Networth of both individuals is higher, they accumulate more assets,
6:10
Speaker 1: they retire wealthier than their unmarried peers. It's the elephant
6:13
Speaker 1: in the room. No one wants to talk about it,
6:15
Speaker 1: and I'm sensitive to the fact that it's a it's
6:18
Speaker 1: a tricky topic, but the data is really really clear.
6:22
Speaker 1: When we look at the very biggest research projects across time,
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Speaker 1: they conclusively, conclusively point to marriage as being fundamental to
6:29
Speaker 1: positive outcomes, well being, a life well lived.
6:39
Speaker 2: So today we're going to talk about five mistakes we
6:42
Speaker 2: want to avoid within our relationships so that we can
6:46
Speaker 2: have very happy marriages.
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Speaker 1: So the first one is the me first mindset. Me
6:50
Speaker 1: first mindset is pretty much talking about being selfish. It's
6:53
Speaker 1: basically saying I'm not considering you. It's kryptonite to a marriage.
6:57
Speaker 1: So I'll use a stereotypical exam a husband who feels
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Speaker 1: like he's entitled to a clean house and a dinner
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Speaker 1: on the table every night, and intimacy on and as
7:05
Speaker 1: needs basis.
7:07
Speaker 2: I think it could be even more simpler than that, though,
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Speaker 2: a husband who goes to work and his wife stays
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Speaker 2: at home and looks up after a brand new baby,
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Speaker 2: but just expects that his job is outside of the
7:18
Speaker 2: house and her job's inside the house.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, or even worse, a husband who goes to work
7:21
Speaker 1: and a wife who goes to work, but he still
7:24
Speaker 1: thinks that she's going to carry the line's share of
7:26
Speaker 1: the labor in terms of keeping the house maintained, in
7:29
Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
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Speaker 2: And the mental load.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's just this Essentially, it's a selfishness, like
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Speaker 1: I'll look after me and you look after everything else.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's endlessly pursuing goal expense of the relationship whatever
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Speaker 1: it is. Regardless the scenario, selfishness subsumes any goodwill and
7:44
Speaker 1: it raises resentment and crushes the companionship. There's another example
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Speaker 1: of me first mindsets as well, and that is when
7:50
Speaker 1: somebody tries to mold their husband or wife into their
7:53
Speaker 1: perfect version of who they want them to be or
7:55
Speaker 1: who they think they would be as well. Like I'm
7:58
Speaker 1: an outgoing person. If I'm constantly to get you to
8:00
Speaker 1: be outgoing and you're not an outgoing person, I'm trying
8:03
Speaker 1: to mold you into my perfect version of me because
8:06
Speaker 1: I think I'm awesome and I think that's how life
8:07
Speaker 1: should be. But it's not going to work because I'm
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Speaker 1: failing to understand your hopes and dreams and goals not
8:14
Speaker 1: just for life, but maybe just for the next five
8:15
Speaker 1: minutes while we're introducing ourselves to these people. And if
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Speaker 1: we can't calibrate appropriately, that selfishness causes a relationship to
8:23
Speaker 1: come undone.
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Speaker 2: That's why we just do so well together. We're so different.
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Speaker 2: But I actually think while we haven't tried to change
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Speaker 2: each other, we've inadvertently taken on some of each other's traits.
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Speaker 2: And I used to be really shy. I didn't used
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Speaker 2: to kind of get out there in.
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Speaker 1: The early days. I was selfish and just thought that
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Speaker 1: you needed to be like me. Well, but I love
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Speaker 1: your differences to me. Now I just cherish them and
8:50
Speaker 1: celebrate them now.
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Speaker 2: But you bounce off the walls all the time, and
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Speaker 2: so my nice quiet has kind of calmed you down
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Speaker 2: a little bit over time.
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Speaker 1: Maybe maybe just a bit, just a bit, I don't
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Speaker 1: know if that's your it's just me getting older and
9:01
Speaker 1: feeling more tired. But either way, let's look at number two.
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Speaker 2: Number two is the maybe I do mindset.
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Speaker 1: Okay, this one is basically about commitment. People who question
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Speaker 1: commitment create conditions that are going to develop into a
9:15
Speaker 1: lack of trust. If I don't feel like you're fully committed,
9:18
Speaker 1: If I don't feel like you're fully committed, then I'm
9:20
Speaker 1: not going to invest as much. And this is a
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Speaker 1: really provocative thing to say. I recognize this, but it's
9:25
Speaker 1: based on solid evidence from one researcher in particular. His
9:29
Speaker 1: name is Scott Stanley. He's done some work with Glenna Rhodes,
9:31
Speaker 1: Howard Markman. These guys have been looking at this thing
9:33
Speaker 1: called the cohabitation effect since the nineteen eighties, and what
9:36
Speaker 1: their research shows is that when people slide into a
9:39
Speaker 1: relationship rather than decide to get into a relationship, commitment
9:42
Speaker 1: levels are lower, which means that investment levels are lower,
9:45
Speaker 1: which means that trust levels are lower, and the corollary,
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Speaker 1: reduce commitment, reduce trust, poor a relationship quality. This is
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Speaker 1: the maybe I do mindset, and it seems to backfire
9:58
Speaker 1: in terms of having a healthyer relationship.
10:01
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks ago, we shared our story on
10:03
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day how we met and the things that made
10:07
Speaker 2: up our relationship, and you shared a story about our
10:11
Speaker 2: early days in that first year. We had an altercation
10:15
Speaker 2: at some point and I kind of looked at you
10:17
Speaker 2: and said, well, if you feel like that, maybe we
10:19
Speaker 2: should just get divorced and you know, save each other
10:21
Speaker 2: a whole heap of trouble. And at that point you
10:23
Speaker 2: acknowledged that that was a conversation that we would never
10:26
Speaker 2: have again. That divorce wasn't kind of.
10:29
Speaker 1: Not a word we'll say, and it's not an option
10:31
Speaker 1: in this relationship because we do treat each other well
10:33
Speaker 1: and we can just figure this stuff out.
10:35
Speaker 2: And I think that that changed something in both of
10:38
Speaker 2: us as we recognized that we were in this for
10:42
Speaker 2: good and bad, that they were going to be challenging times,
10:45
Speaker 2: but we were completely committed to one another and to
10:48
Speaker 2: the relationship that we were creating.
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Speaker 1: It makes such a difference when we have a strong
10:51
Speaker 1: commitment rather than maybe I do mindset. So number one,
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Speaker 1: the me first mindset guaranteed to undermine and harm your marriage.
10:57
Speaker 1: Number two that maybe I do mindset. The third number
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Speaker 1: three expecting a soulmate marriage. No such thing as a soulmate.
11:04
Speaker 1: Got to get over the idea that there's a soulmate.
11:06
Speaker 1: If you think that a relationship is about intense emotion
11:09
Speaker 1: and romantic connection, it's almost certain that you're going to
11:13
Speaker 1: be crushed at some point when the emotion subsides and
11:16
Speaker 1: the romantic connection dims. The best research that I found
11:21
Speaker 1: in this show is that if you're expecting a soulmate marriage,
11:24
Speaker 1: you should be prepared for a new relationship sometime in
11:27
Speaker 1: the future because soilmates simply don't exist. It's fine to
11:31
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of romance and togethern is happening,
11:34
Speaker 1: but relationships are also about children and commitment and financial
11:40
Speaker 1: stuff and stuff. Yeah, that's right, stuff and you usually
11:44
Speaker 1: find that your soulmate isn't quite the person that you
11:46
Speaker 1: thought that they were when the rubber hits the road,
11:48
Speaker 1: when randomness and volatility start to hit you.
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Speaker 2: Having been through twenty five years.
11:54
Speaker 1: Together, hey, excuse me, excuse me? Twenty five years? Can
11:57
Speaker 1: I just mention this? We have approximately thirteen days until
12:01
Speaker 1: it's twenty six.
12:01
Speaker 2: Twenty six years, I know, but we're still at twenty five. OK. Fine.
12:07
Speaker 2: What we have experienced is that beautiful ebb and flow
12:11
Speaker 2: of life together. And sometimes things are cruising and we
12:16
Speaker 2: feel like we're flying on cloud nine, and other times
12:19
Speaker 2: we feel like we're in the depths of I don't know,
12:22
Speaker 2: some swamp in the middle of nowhere. It gets really
12:25
Speaker 2: really hard. But having that absolute knowledge that yours committed
12:29
Speaker 2: to the relationship as I am, means that we can
12:33
Speaker 2: work through that and recognize and know that and we're
12:35
Speaker 2: not going to stay down in that swamp forever. That
12:37
Speaker 2: there's going to be another mountain peak and we're going
12:39
Speaker 2: to enjoy life again together.
12:42
Speaker 1: Number four failure to connects. If you want to harm
12:45
Speaker 1: your marriage, just stop connecting. Connection means seeing, hearing, valuing technology, interfairs, priorities, compete,
12:51
Speaker 1: life gets really busy, babies, you get exhausted. Intimate quality declines.
12:57
Speaker 1: Not for everyone, but for many people. The amount of
13:00
Speaker 1: effort you put in reduces because you've got to put
13:02
Speaker 1: effort into so many other places. Date night, date night disappears,
13:06
Speaker 1: and all of our best intentioned efforts start to fail
13:10
Speaker 1: because of just running house. Running a life gets in
13:13
Speaker 1: the way. Failure to connect is a guaranteed way to
13:17
Speaker 1: harm your marriage. Got to find ways, got to find times,
13:20
Speaker 1: got to find the capacity to prioritize and see here
13:23
Speaker 1: and value one another.
13:24
Speaker 2: I think the magic word here is intention.
13:26
Speaker 1: I'd go further. It's not just about having the intention,
13:29
Speaker 1: it's actually putting into action. I intend to connect with you,
13:32
Speaker 1: but I get busy. Intention isn't quite far enough. There's
13:35
Speaker 1: that old saying that the road to hell is paved
13:37
Speaker 1: with good intentions. You can intend to do this and
13:40
Speaker 1: intend to do that. I think it actually requires action.
13:43
Speaker 1: It requires connection and commitment, and that's what makes the
13:46
Speaker 1: marriage work. If you want to harm your marriage, just
13:48
Speaker 1: focus on intention rather than action.
13:50
Speaker 2: Well, number five is being around others who don't value marriage.
13:55
Speaker 1: You want to hear some crazy stats. This from a
13:58
Speaker 1: researcher named roseen Quist and colleagues who said this. In
14:02
Speaker 1: one of their studies, they found that the likelihood of
14:05
Speaker 1: divorce increased by seventy five percent for individuals with a
14:09
Speaker 1: divorce friend. Let me say that again, if your friends
14:11
Speaker 1: are divorced, your chances of divorce go up by seventy
14:14
Speaker 1: five percent. Some other researchers, McPherson and colleagues found that
14:18
Speaker 1: this effect extends to friends of friends. So if you
14:22
Speaker 1: are one degree of separation removed from the divorce se
14:27
Speaker 1: you're still at a thirty three percent higher chance of divorce.
14:31
Speaker 1: So there's this ripple effect. There's a divorce contagion, you
14:34
Speaker 1: might even call it divorce ideation, where within social circles
14:39
Speaker 1: there's going to be some influence on attitudes and behaviors.
14:42
Speaker 1: Well beyond just the people involved in the divorce. Friends
14:45
Speaker 1: and even friends of friends are at increased risk of divorce.
14:49
Speaker 2: I remember, just after I finished high school, I caught
14:52
Speaker 2: up with one of my high school teachers. I absolutely
14:55
Speaker 2: idolized this woman. She was amazing, and she was so
14:58
Speaker 2: instrumental in me getting through year twelve, but loving my
15:03
Speaker 2: class with her and you and I were engaged by
15:06
Speaker 2: that stage. But I was going through this a little
15:09
Speaker 2: bit of an epiphany in my own life, and I
15:12
Speaker 2: had never had someone believe in me the way you did.
15:15
Speaker 2: I started dreaming about who I could be and what
15:18
Speaker 2: I could achieve in my life based on the conversations
15:21
Speaker 2: you and I had had, and the struggle I was
15:24
Speaker 2: having was if I wanted to achieve those things, I
15:27
Speaker 2: couldn't see how I could achieve them and have a family.
15:31
Speaker 2: They were not congruent where I wanted to go or
15:34
Speaker 2: where I thought I wanted to go, and where I
15:37
Speaker 2: had committed to go. We caught up one afternoon for
15:41
Speaker 2: afternoon tea and I was sharing just how excited I
15:45
Speaker 2: was about getting married and all of the things that
15:48
Speaker 2: associated with that, And as the conversation continued, I found
15:50
Speaker 2: myself sharing with her this newfound confidence that I had.
15:54
Speaker 2: She was my teacher, so she knew the person I
15:56
Speaker 2: was previous, and so she could see this growth in
15:58
Speaker 2: me that had occurred. In a sense because of my
16:02
Speaker 2: relationship with you. You had provided me with a belief
16:07
Speaker 2: in me that I had never experienced before, and so
16:10
Speaker 2: the confidence that I had in what I could do
16:13
Speaker 2: with my life like just blew out of the water.
16:16
Speaker 2: And so as I was sharing all of these dreams
16:18
Speaker 2: and goals and things that I, you know, were aspirations
16:21
Speaker 2: that I was thinking about, she looked at me and
16:24
Speaker 2: she said, Kylie, why would you ever want to get married?
16:27
Speaker 2: She said, look at you. You've got your whole world
16:30
Speaker 2: ahead of you. You could be any one of those things.
16:32
Speaker 2: Why would you trap yourself in a relationship and minimize
16:38
Speaker 2: your capacity? And I just remember walking away from that
16:41
Speaker 2: and feeling so deeply saddened by the conversation I had.
16:47
Speaker 2: It actually confirmed to me that while all of those
16:50
Speaker 2: other places would have given me life experience that I
16:54
Speaker 2: will never experience, I would never have experienced the joy
17:00
Speaker 2: and the connection and the love and security that I've
17:03
Speaker 2: experienced in the life that I have created with you.
17:06
Speaker 1: Marriage matters. It may not be a popular thing to
17:10
Speaker 1: say the research points in that direction, and certainly our
17:12
Speaker 1: experience does, but it's about having a good marriage as well.
17:15
Speaker 1: It's about working on it, being committed, and figuring out
17:17
Speaker 1: how you can avoid those mistakes that harm marriage the most.
17:21
Speaker 1: If you had to cut through the noise. It's not
17:23
Speaker 1: just about happily ever after fantasies. It's about real world benefits.
17:27
Speaker 1: And the data points to financial security, better outcomes for kids. Look,
17:31
Speaker 1: it's not for everyone. I'm actually going to say that
17:33
Speaker 1: marriage is not for everyone, and there are good reasons
17:35
Speaker 1: for some people to not be married. But marriage isn't
17:39
Speaker 1: just about the piece of paper. It's a foundation for
17:41
Speaker 1: a life of meaning and joy and purpose and growth.
17:44
Speaker 1: So I think we need to champion marriage, especially as
17:47
Speaker 1: marriage starts to decline. We've got evidence that it's doing that.
17:49
Speaker 1: We need to celebrate its merits and support those who
17:51
Speaker 1: choose a marriage path. It's time to prioritize the gold,
17:54
Speaker 1: stand and read the rewards. The Happy Families podcast is
17:57
Speaker 1: produced by Justin Roland for Bridge Media. For more information
18:00
Speaker 1: and about how you can make your family happier and
18:02
Speaker 1: your marriage stronger, visit happy families dot com dot a
18:12
Speaker 1: m HM