increasingly vulnerable marriages  percentage chance that a couple marrying in any particular year will end by divorcing  statistics from USA with 1990 figures projected from current trends Gottman J What predicts divorce: the relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, % chance of divorcing

why are marriages so vulnerable?  divorce now more socially “acceptable”  families & communities in general more fragmented  somewhat easier now economically for women  longer lifespans  inadequate relationship skills & gender difference problems

we have multiple intelligences  linguistic  logical-mathematical  musical  spatial  bodily-kinesthetic  intrapersonal  interpersonal Gardner H Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences, 2nd ed. London: Fontana Press, 1993 each of us has a personal mix of talents - enjoying our preferred areas and developing some skills in our weak ones makes very good sense

gender & emotional intelligence  girls develop verbal skills quicker than boys  adults talk to girls about emotions more than they do to boys  girls & boys between about 6 and 16 develop in parallel but separate universes  girls become much more skilful at reading verbal and nonverbal signals than boys  girls become better than boys at articulating their feelings Brody LR & Hall JA Gender & emotion in Lewis L & Haviland J (ed’s) Handbook of emotions New York: Guilford Press, 1993

typical gender differences include:  women are more empathic than men in their ability to read unstated emotions from facial expression, voice tone & other non-verbal cues  women’s faces are more emotionally expressive than men’s faces  women tend to feel the entire range of emotions more easily and more intensely than men  women value communication more and are generally more rewarding to communicate with Goleman D Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ London: Bloomsbury, 1996

typical marital breakdown sequence  criticism becomes more globally directed at the person rather than their actions  underlying toxic assumptions about each other develop  female attacks are met with male stonewalling  one or both partners become emotionally “flooded” living much of the time in fight/flight Gottman J Why marriages succeed or fail New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994