Accepting Your Spouse’s Influence
The marriages that did work well all had one thing in common - the husband was willing to accept his wife’s influence.
“We found that only those newlywed men who are accepting of influence from their wives are ending up in happy, stable marriages,” Gottman said. The husbands who failed to listen to their wives' suggestions and complaints, greeting them with stonewalling, contempt and belligerence, were doomed from the beginning, they found. By the way, this is great advice for brides. Does your fiancé listen to your advice now and accept your influence? If not, you are headed for a unstable marriage.
In the researchers' observations of couples, they found little evidence of women failing to listen to their husbands. But the study did not let wives completely off the hook. Women who couched their suggestions and complaints in a gentle, soothing, perhaps even humorous approach to the husband were more likely to have happy marriages than those who were belligerent.
Needed: Emotionally Healthy Husbands
Gottman is calling for emotionally intelligent husbands. Some men are really good at accepting a wife's influence, at finding something reasonable in a partner's complaint to agree with. This group represents perhaps a third of all men, Gottman added. Another group just rejects all attempts at influence. That's very characteristic of violent men, but a majority of men do it to some extent. They feel, “If I give in on this, I'm going to lose everything. I'm going to be totally manipulated and controlled.”
That is not to say men are the source of all problems in a marriage. But changing their attitudes is a very powerful lever in altering the course of a marriage.
An Example of Influence
For instance, a woman says, “Do you have to work this Thursday night? My mother is coming this weekend, and I need your help getting ready.” Her husband replies, “My plans are set, and I’m not changing them.” As you might guess, this guy is in a shaky marriage. A husband’s ability to be influenced by his wife (rather than vice-versa) is crucial, because research shows that women are already well practiced at accepting influence from men. A true partnership only occurs when a husband can do the same thing.
