Emotional Intelligence, Marriage and Your health

10 Questions to Ask When You're Considering Marrying Someone from the EQ Coach, Susan Dunn

What if you have contempt for your spouse

Emotions and attitudes can kill a marriage. According to researcher John Gottman, these are the 4 Horses of the Apocalypse:

Defensiveness
Stonewalling
Criticism
Contempt

And of these, contempt is the most harmful. (This is often displayed by rolling the eyes.) Gottman explains what we know:

"You would think criticism would be the worst, because criticism is a global condemnation of a person's character. Yet contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife, 'You never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive. Well, she's going to respond defensively to that. That's not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that's far more damaging, and contempt is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of time it's an insult: 'You are a bitch. You're scum.' It's trying to put that person on a lower plane than you are. It's hierarchical."

He adds that contempt and disgust are close -- they infer completely rejecting the person from community, ostracizing them.

Disgust is one of the basic emotions from the reptilian brain. In other words, "automatic." In one of the couples they interviewed about how they met, the woman said she had been disgusted by the man's behavior on the first date. She then went on to marry him.

At times we go on "instinct", without thinking, and it turns out bad. Sometimes we over-ride "instinct" by thinking, and it turns out bad.

Instinct, intuition, "gut-feeling" is a wonderful tool if you understand how it works, and how it works for you. It is generally a disaster to ignore it, have it confused with fantasy, etc.

To learn more about your intuition, take my Intuition Course, or The EQ Course (tm). These courses are on the Internet, interactive, with feedback, and may be combined with coaching.

Emotional Intelligence competencies can be learned, and intuition is one of them.

Do these pants make my butt look too big?

About honesty in relationships, and "the truth."

A constant sort point in male-female relationships has to do with "the truth." To many men, truth is an absolute.

There's a joke circulating about this now - one of many. Here it is:

A woman is standing nude looking in the bedroom mirror. She is not happy with what she sees and says to her husband, 'I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.'

He quickly replies, "Well you have perfect eyesight."

I hate to belabor the obvious on this one. It's a joke because we all know this.

IF you don't have tact, and if you confuse "honesty" with "the truth", as if you owned the truth ... please take some EQ training.

If you are a kind and decent person and a person needs reassurance, give it. It's the higher path.

The "truth" is a relative thing, subject to one's subjectivity. Kindness matters more in human relationships.

How To Decide Who to Marry

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?

Well, here's what some kids had to say.

You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. -- Alan , age 10

No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kristen , age 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. -- Camille , age 10

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. -- Derrick , age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
Both don't want any more kids. -- Lori , age 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough. -- Lynnette , age 8

On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date. -- Martin , age 10

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?
I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns. -- Craig , age 9

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
When they're rich.-- Pam , age 7
The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that. - - Curt , age 7
The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. -- Howard , age 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?
It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them. -- Anita , age 9

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?
There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? -- Kelvin, age 8

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck. -- Ricky , age 10

Married 17 Years

Today's guest article is about what makes a marriage work.

When I first wrote this article, I was married for 14 years. Now, I'm a happily married woman of 17 years! Sometimes I just need to pinch myself. With a family curse of divorces, I never thought I'd find myself married this long, let alone happily married. We've come a long way in 17 years. It hasn't always been a smooth ride, but it's been a good ride.To be honest, I never thought we'd make it this far. While my husband's mom and dad are a great example of what it means to make a commitment and make your marriage work (they'll be celebrating 53 years in November!), my side of the family has a hard time staying married to each other. In fact, I was so afraid we'd be divorced before we hit our one-year anniversary that I kept my maiden name hyphened with my married name for the first 6 months of my marriage.Today, I can honestly say that I don't worry about divorce and haven't for many years. I think hitting the five year anniversary mark and renewing our vows really helped me put things into perspective. But it was my mom's words that really locked things in for me. One day, while talking about how long I've been married and my initial fears, she said to me, "You broke the family curse. I'm proud of the two of you. You've worked so hard for your marriage. You're a good example. I hope your sister will one day find the kind of love and marriage you have. That is my hope for her."

Why has our marriage lasted 17 years?

Only God truly knows the true answer, but I've come up with a few good reasons:

1. We made a commitment to work things out no matter how hard life gets (and believe me we have had some very rocky and treacherous terrain).
2. We took out the word "obey" in our wedding vows and refused to replace it with something else. We believed we were not each other's property, but a team of decision makers.
3. We take the time to apologize—even when we don't want to. And even if it takes some working up to get the apology out, we work on making it happen.
4. We lift each other up to others because lifting each other up reminds us of why we fell in love with each other in the first place.
5. We accept the fact that we both have baggage that we've brought into this marriage and we've agreed to work through that baggage together.
6. We've learned to listen to one another—even when sometimes it's a boring thing to do.
7. We learned to joke about ourselves and each other.
8. We don't intentionally go around hurting each other.
9. We vent to close friends who can keep our vents in confidence and not hold them against our spouse.
10. We've learned to let our guard down with each other.
11. We trust each other and do what we can to keep that trust.
12. We have faith that the Lord brought us together.
13. We love each other and remind each other of this, often.
14. We understand that marriage takes work and commitment and are willing to do our part to make our marriage work until death do us part.

In 17 years of marriage, I've learned that marriages aren't fairy tales made up of bubbly, happy go-lucky days and nights. They are roller coaster rides with lots of ups and downs. But if you really want to keep that "new puppy-love" feeling alive just toss in some one-on-one time, a little romance, and a lot of forgiveness.

Forgive each other for driving each other crazy, for the little wrongs you've done to one another, and for anything else that isn't a "big deal" in the larger scheme of things.

About The Author:Alyice Edrich is the editor of The Dabbling Mum®, a free parenting publication, and the author of several work from home e-books designed to help parents earn extra cash while spending more time with their children. To learn more, visit http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore

How Your Fight with Your Partner (and how they fight with YOU) Effects Your Health (and Theirs)

When they say, "You're going to give me a heart attack," they could be right.

Read the full article here: Marital Spats, Taken to Heart - New York Times
RESEARCH CONFIRMING THAT EMOTIONS EFFECT YOUR WELLNESS ... In interesting ways

The way you fight with your spouse can affect your health (and theirs)

From the article:

--32 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women said they typically bottled up their feelings during a marital spat. In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt (from Psychosomatic Medicine).

--Whether the woman reported being in a happy marriage or an unhappy marriage didn’t change her risk.

--According to Dana Crowley Jack, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., the self-silencing trait is linked to numerous psychological and physical health risks, including depression, eating disorders and heart disease.

--The emotional tone that men and women take during arguments with a spouse
can also take a toll. The style of argument was a powerful predictor for a man or woman’s risk for underlying heart disease.

--The way the couple interacted was as important a heart risk factor as whether they smoked or had high cholesterol. (Timothy W. Smith, a psychology professor at the University of Utah)

--For women, whether a husband’s arguing style was warm or hostile had the biggest effect on her heart health. A warm style of arguing by either spouse lowered the wife’s risk of heart disease.

--Arguing style affected men and women differently. The level of warmth or hostility had no effect on a man’s heart health. For a man, heart risk increased if disagreements with his wife involved a battle for control. And it didn’t matter whether he or his wife was the one making the controlling comments. **

--Cardiovascular risk was only related to the quality of the couple’s bickering style.

**Example: Man arguing with his wife says: “You really should just listen to me on this."

LEARNING HOW TO MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS CAN EFFECT YOUR WELLNESS -- AND THAT OF THOSE AROUND YOU. TAKE THE EQ COURSE TO LEARN MORE.

The Happy Marriage

In today's mailbag, supposedly written by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of MBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

In conjunction with this, I received this link
http://www.poodwaddle.com/realage.swf for calculating your "real" age and your life expectancy. When you get to the one that rates your marriage, watch what happens if you move to "very happy." If you'd like coaching on relationships email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc . There is nothing more helpful than to increase your emotional intelligence skills. As you'll see on poodwaddle.

Here is the article, entitled NO LEFT TURNS.

>> My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should
>> say I never saw him drive a car.
>>
>> He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car
>> he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
>>
>> "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car
>> you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet,
>> and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life
>> and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."
>>
>>
>>
>> At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
>> "Oh, bull----!" she said. "He hit a horse."
>>
>> "Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
>>
>> So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The
>> neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green
>> 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth,
>> the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
>>
>> My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to
>> work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the
>> streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three
>> blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
>>
>> My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and
>> sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars
>> but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would
>> explain, and that was that.
>>
>> But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys
>> turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us
>> would turn 16 first.
>>
>> But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my
>> parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts
>> department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
>>
>> It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded
>> with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less
>> became my brother's car.
>>
>> Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but
>> it didn't make sense to my mother.
>>
>> So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach
>> her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I
>> learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I
>> took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my
>> father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember
>> him saying more than once.
>>
>> For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the
>> driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of
>> direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the
>> city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
>>
>> Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout
>> Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement
>> that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of
>> marriage.
>>
>> (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire
>> time.)
>>
>> He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20
>> years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St.
>> Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and
>> he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two
>> priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father
>> then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the
>> end of the service and walking her home.
>>
>> If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then
>> head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and
>> "Father Slow."
>>
>> After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother
>> whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If
>> she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or
>> go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine
>> running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the
>> evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again.
>> The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on
>> first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."
>>
>> If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry
>> the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I
>> said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she
>> was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the
>> secret of a long life?"
>>
>> "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
>>
>> "No left turns," he said.
>>
>> "What?" I asked.
>>
>> "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I
>> read an article that said most accidents that old people are in
>> happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
>>
>> As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth
>> perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make
>> a left turn."
>>
>> "What?" I said again.
>>
>> "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same
>> as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."
>>
>> "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support "No,"
>> she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But
>> then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
>>
>> I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I
>> started laughing.
>>
>> "Loses count?" I asked.
>>
>> "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a
>> problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."
>>
>> I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.
>>
>> "No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it
>> a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put
>> off another day or another week."
>>
>> My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her
>> car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999,
>> when she was 90.
>>
>> She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year,
>> at 102.
>>
>> They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in
>> 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my
>> brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom
>> -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and
>> there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for
>> the house.)
>>
>> He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he
>> was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but
>> wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body
>> until the moment he died.
>>
>> One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I
>> had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all
>> three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual
>> wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in
>> the news.
>>
>> A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first
>> hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred."
>> At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm
>> probably not going to live much longer."
>>
>> "You're probably right," I said.
>>
>> "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.
>>
>> "Because you're 102 years old," I said.
>>
>> "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.
>>
>> That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with
>> him through the night.
>>
>> He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us
>> look gloomy, he said:
>>
>> "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead
>> yet"
>>
>> An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
>>
>> "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no
>> pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone
>> on this earth could ever have."
>>
>> A short time later, he died.
>>
>> I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and
>> then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so
>> long.
>>
>> I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or
>> because he quit taking left turns. "
>>
>> Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who
>> treat you right. Forget about those who don't. Believe everything
>> happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes
>> your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised
>> it would most likely be worth it."

How Good is Your Marriage?

How are your people skills? Your social skills? Your relationship skills? Your emotional intelligence?

Today's emailbag is about increasing those life skills that can enhance your life.

THE 70% RATE IN MARRIAGE

Author Pat Morley notes:

“In writing about what makes a successful marriage, family systems thinker Edwin Friedman said, 'In reality, no human marriage gets a rating of more than 70%.' In other words, even the most successful marriage will only be symptom-free about 70% of the time. Patsy, my wife, and I both think we have a great marriage. We talked this 70% thing over, and it makes sense to us. Use this to encourage yourself. You don’t have to be symptom-free 100% of the time. 70% is about right, and that’s pretty good in a fallen world.”

If you haven't got 70% in your range, email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc and I'll make arrangements to help you increase your emotional intelligence and relationship skills.

DATING

Q: hi, i wanted to ask about how to attract this guy that i like in college. i don't know him and he is one year older than me (am 21)i don't get to see him alot , but i heared lots of nice things about him . i don't know if i am imagining but i think he noticed me . please tell me how to attract him without looking so desperate .

A: Well, I don't know the situation at your particular college, but let me give you some examples, and you can put on your thinking cap and connect the dots. Its not a bad skill to learn, BTW. There are times in life when we want to get some exposure to someone, so they can get to know us a little and see if it's a 'take'. The general theory is -- find out where they go, and be there.

Here are some examples of how this works.

One of my clients is a fundraiser. He needs to get around donors (people who have money) and sometimes he can't get through their secretary to make an appointment, or emails aren't answered, or lunch invitations are declined. So in one case, he found out the guy had opera tickets and managed to get a pair of tickets right next to the guy. From that vantage point, he was able to have a nice conversation with the guy (at intermission and afterwards), and let him get to know him, and the relationship went on from there.

How he found out where the man's seats were, etc. took some investigation. But it's possible.

This goes on all the time in the business world, of course. That's why people join country clubs, golf clubs, recreational clubs, etc. People meet clients that way, get jobs that way, etc. Another client of mine needs a job. Besides the obvious things (monster.com, agencies), she is making time to hang out at the pool, where she can ask around and maybe meet some hirers.

Another woman who wanted to date a man she had heard had just become available, knew he attended galas for charities, and so she showed up at one. She "ran into him" beforehand, and managed to sit at his table. It worked and he asked her out.

Another client wanted to meet a guy at her college. She started eating at different dining halls, keeping her eyes open to see where and when he ate. When she found out, she dressed for success, showed up, and just got in line behind him and struck up a conversation. He asked her out.

If there's a group involved, it's easy (why we join groups). One woman found out in Sunday School that the man of her dreams was going to the weekly dance class. She joined up. That's a no-brainer.

Lastly, again I don't know about your college, but be prepared for the lucky chance of just running in to him. Women go up to men all the time in the grocery store, for heaven's sake. Surely you might run in to him on campus. Be looking! Notice a couple of things about this.

1. You may have to do some investigating. Don't be obnoxious about it. None of these people were. You can also ask around, just in the way of conversation. "Hey, Bill is cute. Do you know what classes he's taking?"
2. You have to have the social skills to maneuver the meet and the initial conversation. If you need to brush up on your social skills, I recommend coaching. THAT is a life skill you MUST have. How to strike up a pleasant conversation with ANYBODY, and present yourself in a good light, is something every man and woman needs to know. It's an art and it can be learned (email me for coaching, sdunn@susandunn.cc ). Shyness will get you nowhere, but being obnoxious will also get you nowhere.
3. The follow up. This is to make something possible. It lets the person know your name and get to know you a little bit. From that point on, it is up to them. Of course you do not pursue, badger, or even that awful word "stalk". You see the difference? It's an introduction (if the two of you haven't met), or a little reminder (if you've had a conversation or two). Beyond that, it's up to him. It's not classy to make a nuisance of yourself.

If you need to do some work on your social skills, email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc and I will make arranges to help you raise your EQ.

You Gotta Kiss De Girl

I think he captures something here ...



Susan Dunn, The Internet Dating Coach. Email me and let's get started: sdunn@susandunn.cc .