Blink

My wife's on a biennial visit with the kids at her grandparents' farm. It's a great spot for a summer getaway and the kids are having a great time with their grandparents. They've been gone for 5 days and I miss them. I miss the kids individually and in spurts; I miss her like a low drone. Our feelings and communication have been good. I wrote her this just a few minutes ago:

I'm listening to a new book now called Blink, basically about our ability to make instantaneous assessments/decisions about topics that we understand, with accuracy that often rivals that of long, thorough analysis. It's described pretty well in the first review here.

One of the chapters focuses on a marital counselor (or something) who, over the course of 30+ years, has developed an ability to predict whether a couple will still be together in 15 years, by observing simply 15 minutes or less of their dialogue about a topic on which they disagree. With 15 min observation he is 95% accurate. With 7 min 85% accurate. With 3 min 80% accurate. It's very interesting. A couple of parts that got me thinking most are his claims/observations that:

- For a relationship to last, there needs to be at least a 5:1 positive:negative ratio of sentiment and communication. If there is, then an phenomenon called "positive sentiment override" occurs, in which when one partner does or says something negative, the other will not let it sink in but will dismiss it, "Oh, she must be really tired" or "He must have had a rough day at work...no biggie." But if the pos:neg ratio is less than 5, then "negative sentiment override" will govern, in which the default view the partner is negative, so even positive events/statements will be viewed with suspicion & skepticism, even cynicism, and the assumption that the "good-doer" has an ulterior motive, is being insincere, etc. And once "negative sentiment override" is in play, it's almost a death spiral to try to break out of.

- The "Four Horsemen" (as in John's four horsemen of the apocalypse) in a marriage are:
1. Defensiveness (used evenly by wives & husbands)
2. Stonewalling (this is more typical of the husbands)
3. Criticism (more typical of the women)
4. Contempt (dealt out equally by both men and women)
Of these, he says that contempt --which he is clear to state is very different from criticism-- is the death knell. It's such a strong factor that the presence of observable contempt will almost always override anything else that's positive, and is so devastating to the object of contempt and creates such internal system stress that it is actually a predictor of health, frequency of illness, etc.

Anyway, something to think about. Doesn't seem that we're past the 5:1 mark. Probably more 3:2ish? And no lack of defensiveness, stonewalling and criticism. Not sure about outright contempt as being a constant, but there have been little flare-ups of that. What do you think?