The small things that hold a marriageStep 1 of 8

Before you read on

Before anything else. If any of these is true for you, this course is not the right one and you should not use what it teaches. You are afraid of your spouse. You change what you say to avoid a reaction. You have been hurt physically, even once. You are not allowed to see people, hold money, or go out alone. Your phone or your movements are checked. You have been threatened. Sex happens when you do not want it. Nothing is scored here and nobody is being told what is happening to them. But repair skills are not safe where one person is controlling the other, because technique in that situation becomes another tool for the person doing the harm. Go to the course called When home is not safe instead.

Lesson 2 of 6

Four behaviours, watched on tape

In the 1980s and 1990s a research group in Seattle put couples in a room, filmed them arguing, coded every few seconds of it, and then followed them for years.

Out of that work came a short list of four behaviours that kept showing up in the couples who went on to do badly. Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.

They are worth learning for one reason. They are behaviours, not personalities. You can see them on a tape. You can hear yourself doing one. And a thing you can hear yourself doing is a thing you can stop mid sentence.