Chapter 11 Communication in Relationships, Marriages and Families

Chapter Outline  Characteristics of Cohesive Families  Communication and Couple Satisfaction  Stress, Coping, and Conflict in Relationships  John Gottman’s Research on Couple Communication and Conflict Management  Gender Differences and Communication  Working Through Conflicts in Positive Ways—Ten Guidelines  Toward Better Couple and Family Communication

Characteristics of Cohesive Families  Family Cohesion: togetherness, the emotional bonding that couples and family members have toward one another  A family can have too much cohesion (an enmeshed family) or too little (a disengaged or disconnected family).  Experts advise a balanced level of cohesion— one that combines a reasonable and mutually satisfying degree of emotional bonding with individual family members’ need for autonomy.

Characteristics of Cohesive Families

Six Qualities of Family Cohesion 1. Communicate appreciation for one another. 2. Have a high degree of commitment to promoting one another's happiness and welfare. 3. Arrange personal schedules so they can do things together.

Six Qualities of Family Cohesion 4. Are able to deal positively with crises. 5. Have some spiritual orientation. 6. Have positive communication patterns.

Children, Family Cohesion, and Unresolved Conflict  Regardless of family structure, a family characterized by warmth, cohesion, and generally supportive communication is better for children.  A home characterized by significant, unresolved, and ongoing conflict negatively impacts children.  Conflicts can end in constructive ways from the children’s perspective.

As We Make Choices: Communicating with Children—How to Talk so Kids will Listen and so Kids will Talk  Helping Children Deal with Their Feelings  Engaging a Child’s Cooperation  Instead of Punishment  Encouraging Autonomy  Praise and Self-Esteem  Freeing Children from Playing Roles

As We Make Choices: Communicating with Children—How to Talk so Kids will Listen and so Kids will Talk  What bit of advice in this section might you choose to practice when communicating with the child(ren) in your life?  Why is it important to encourage children to talk?  What is it important to listen to children?  Why does how we talk to children matter?

Communication and Couple Satisfaction  Couples demonstrate different relationship ideologies—expectations for closeness and/or distance as well as ideas about how partners should play their roles.  Couples also differ in their attitudes toward conflict.  What matters is whether the partners’ actual interaction matches their ideology.

Four Types of Marital Relationships  Researchers Ted Huston and Heidi Melz classified marital relationships into four types:  Warm or friendly – High at showing signs of affection, low on antagonism  Tempestuous or stormy – High on both affection and antagonism  Bland or empty shell – Low on signs of affection and antagonism  Hostile or distressed – Low on affection but high on antagonism

Couple Conflict Even the happiest and most committed couples experience conflict. Research shows that an essential characteristic of happy couples involves disclosure of feelings and showing affection for one another.

As We Make Choices: Ten Rules for Successful Relationships  Express love verbally.  Be physically affectionate.  Express appreciation and admiration.  Share more about yourself with your partner than with any other person.  Offer each other emotional support.

As We Make Choices: Ten Rules for Successful Relationships  Express your love materially.  Accept partner’s demands and put up with partner’s shortcomings.  Make time to be alone together.  Do not take the relationship for granted.  Do unto each other as you would have the other do unto you.

As We Make Choices: Ten Rules for Successful Relationships  Often, we read a list like the previous one and think about whether our partner or other family members are doing them, not whether we ourselves are.  How many of the items on the list do you yourself do?  Which two or three items might you begin to incorporate into a relationship?

Stress, Coping and Conflict in Relationships  Experts advise relationship-focused coping  Indirect Expressions of Anger  Passive-Aggression: Expressing anger indirectly  Sabotage: Getting revenge or “payback”  Displacement: A person directs anger at people or things that the other cherishes

Stress, Coping and Conflict in Relationships  Learning to express anger and dealing with conflict early in a relationship are challenges to be met rather than avoided.  A key to effective conflict management is to share events in friendly, supportive ways so that arguments occur within a context of trust.

John Gottman’s Research on Couple Communication and Conflict Management  The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse  Contempt  Criticism  Defensiveness  Stonewalling

Tactics Used by Fight Evaders 1. Leaving the house or the scene when the fight threatens. 2. Turning sullen and refusing to argue or talk. 3. Derailing arguments, e.g. “I can’t take it when you yell at me.”

Tactics Used by Fight Evaders 4. Stating “I can’t take you seriously when you act this way.” 5. Using the hit and run tactic of filing a complaint and leaving no time for a resolution. 6. Saying “okay, you win” without meaning it.

Stress, Coping and Conflict in Relationships  All couples experience conflict.  How conflicts are addressed and resolved depends on how secure mates feel in their relationship.

Gender Differences and Communication  Deborah Tannen’s book You Just Don’t Understand argued that men typically engage in report talk, conversation aimed mainly at conveying information.  Women are likely to engage in rapport talk, speaking to gain or reinforce rapport or intimacy.

Stonewallers  Chronic stonewallers may fear rejection or retaliation and therefore hesitate to acknowledge their own or their partner’s angry emotions.  Use I-statements, avoid mixed messages, focus your anger on specific issues, and be willing to change.

Working Through Conflicts in Positive Ways—Ten Guidelines  Express anger directly and with kindness.  Check out your interpretation of other’s behaviors.  To avoid attacks, use “I” statements.  Avoid mixed or double messages.  When you can, choose the time and place carefully.

Working Through Conflicts in Positive Ways—Ten Guidelines  Address a specific issue, ask for a specific change, and be open to compromise.  Be willing to change yourself.  Don’t try to win an argument.  Be willing to forgive.  End the argument.

Changing Fighting Habits  The key to staying happily together is not avoiding conflict but dealing with it openly and in supportive ways.  Doing so involves listening.  The goal isn’t necessarily agreement, but acknowledgment, insight, and understanding.

Toward Better Couple and Family Communication  Keeping a loving relationship or creating a cohesive family is not automatic.  Doing so requires working on ourselves as well as on our relationships.  First step: consciously recognizing how important the relationship is.  Second step: setting realistic expectations about the relationship.

Toward Better Couple and Family Communication  Third step: improving our own: 1) emotional intelligence – awareness of what we’re feeling so that we can express our feelings more authentically 2) ability and willingness to repair our moods 3) healthy balance between controlling rash impulses and being candid and spontaneous 4) sensitivity to the feelings and needs of others

Relationship and Family Counseling Relationship and family counseling is a professional service having two goals:  Helping individuals, couples, and families gain insight into the actually or potentially troublesome dynamics of their relationship(s)  Teaching clients more effective and supportive communication techniques.

The Myth of Conflict-Free Conflict  Conflict itself cannot be free from conflict.  Some individuals have a partner who chooses not to learn to face conflict positively.  Not every conflict can be resolved.  If an unresolved conflict is not crucial, then the two may have to accept inability to resolve that issue.

Many observers strongly criticize the way that American culture tends to equate love with infatuation, or chemistry.