The Marital Poop 💩 Detector and Criticism - Week 11

Marriage is an amazing journey!  We choose to navigate life’s greatest joys and challenges with our best friend and lover.  During this process, we will all undoubtedly have marital issues at one point or another.  Couples that have high expectations of their relationships and want to work out their issues, have the highest quality marriages.  And with all of the current emoji “pop-culture”, it’s fitting that we can see how our marriages are measuring up using the “The Marital Poop 💩 Detector.”   This is actually a tool that Dr. Gottman created for couples to stay better connected.  This is a list of twenty-five assessments statements that you and your partner can review daily, weekly or whenever you need a “check-in” to evaluate how connected you and your partner are feeling. Dr. Gottman offers twenty-five, but here are a few; 

1 – “I have been acting irritably.

2 – I have been feeling emotionally distant.

3 – There has been a lot of tension between us.

4 – I find myself wanting to be somewhere else.

5 – I have been feeling lonely.

6 – My partner has seemed emotionally unavailable to me.

7 – I have been angry.

8 -  We have been out of touch with each other.

9 – My partner has little idea of what I am thinking.

10 – We have been under a great deal of stress, and it has taken its toll of us” (Gottman, 2015).

This is just a sampling, but the idea is to go over these questions together and honestly, and gently, talk about each question.  Using active listing skills, soft start-ups, and a lot of empathy and love, together you can start to reconnect.  It’s easy to lose touch with your spouse and this is a great way to stay coupled. 

Gottman also talks about criticism.  He says, “There is no such thing as constructive criticism.  All criticism is painful—criticism doesn’t make a marriage better.”   He talks about two sources that causes a spouse to be chronically critical. First, the spouse is emotionally unresponsive.  It is very easy to become critical of an unresponsive mate.  They don’t unload the dishwasher when you ask, so after a while, you become less patient with your requests and your approach is more than likely more critical, causing your spouse to become more unresponsive.  “It takes courage to be less critical of an unresponsive mate, and it takes courage to turn toward a partner who’s always harping on your flaws.  But both changes are necessary to end the cycle” (Gottman, 2015).  You make the choice to end the cycle.

The second source of criticism in marriage comes from within.  This is criticism that we have all developed over a lifetime.  It is one of self-doubt and inadequacy.  Even after our great accomplishments as adults, this criticism sneaks in and has us telling ourselves, many times, that we are not good enough.  We are our own worst critic.  Gottman suggests that if you are always looking for your own flaws and consider yourself inadequate, you will always be looking for what is NOT there in yourself and your partner.  He says that the best thing you can do for yourself and your marriage is to accept yourself, flaws and all.  This will help you accept who you are and look for the good in yourself of and your spouse.  We take for granted the many wonderful qualities that our partners possess when we are preoccupied with what’s not there.  Many people achieve personal acceptance by religious means of using the path of religious forgiveness.  Some use prayers of thanksgiving and focus on the things in which they are grateful.  Then maybe one day, you will have healing of your soul and feel more accepting of yourself and what a wonderful feeling that will be.

Goddard H. W. (2009). Drawing heaven into your marriage: eternal doctrines that change relationships. Cedar Hills, UT: Joymap Publishing.

Gottman, John M. PH.D., Silver, Nan. (1999, 2015 second edition) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Harmony Books New York