In my work as a psychologist, I see examples every day of relationships slowly dying — and occasionally exploding.
While tragic, these examples give me some insight into what causes marriages to fail. And with a little reverse engineering, they also shed light on how we might strengthen and improve our relationships.
Here are 3 simple habits that will improve your marriage:
1. Validate first, problem-solve later
By far the biggest mistake I see people make in their relationships is getting stuck in problem-solving mode.
When we’re stuck in problem-solving mode, we immediately respond to anything difficult or painful as if it was a problem: We analyze, judge, dissect, compare, evaluate, and interrogate. And while all of these problem-solving approaches are helpful if you’re building a bridge or solving an equation, they tend to backfire when applied to people.
While your intentions are probably good, treating people’s struggles like a problem is invalidating.
It makes them feel like it’s not okay for them to have the problem or that they should be able to fix it immediately. And for someone who’s struggling or upset, feeling bad about feeling bad is a recipe for defensiveness, communication breakdowns, and long-term relationship trouble.
When we’re upset, most of us just want to feel understood and like we’re not alone.
The alternative is to validate their struggles first and reserve your problem-solving efforts for later.
Validating someone’s struggles simply means letting them know that you understand what they’re saying and that it makes sense that they’re feeling that way.
For example, imagine your spouse comes home from work looking anxious and stressed. You ask what’s wrong and she replies that she thinks she’s going to be fired. She goes on to explain how she completely flubbed a potentially huge new sale and her boss was furious.