Inside a Real Gottman Marriage: Don and Carrie Cole on Repair, Second Marriages, and The New Marriage Clinic Casebook

Thanks, Don and Carrie Cole, coming to Marriage Therapy Radio. Don, you're the clinical director of the Gottman Institute. Did I get that right?

You got it right.

And Carrie, you're the research director at the Gottman Institute.

That's correct.

I definitely want to talk about that. I want to hear about, uh, kind of the behind-the-scenes scoop, and I want to talk about the new book. But I mostly want to start with you guys. Uh, couples come on here, or people listen to Marriage Therapy Radio because they want to hear about couples and how they make it work and what's interesting about them. What, what would you say Is interesting about you guys? What's interesting about your marriage, the Coles?

You want to start? That's what's interesting. I let her start.

He does all the cooking or almost all the cooking. That helps. You know, I think we have always really done an equal division of labor. Um, sometimes it weighs more on one person than the other. Like when I was doing my PhD, Don really took over and he really supported me through that. And so I could just basically focus on that. And that was, of course, I'm forever grateful for that opportunity that he encouraged me to do.

Yeah, I watched a lot of solo TV during those years.

What do you watch on TV, Don?

Well, I don't watch much anymore. Um, more YouTube stuff, to be honest. Or every now and then we'll watch a, a show like Reacher or something like that.

Oh my gosh, I'm watching Reacher right now. It's like the perfect, like, I don't have to pay attention and I barely care what's happening show.

I've listened to almost all of those books.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is the show faithful to the books?

Yeah, I like it when these guys beat up bad guys.

Yeah.

Is the show faithful to the books? Like, is it, is it—

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah.

Did you watch the Tom Cruise one?

I did, I did. And I liked the movie, but I just— 5'6 creature just doesn't work for me.

Yeah, he's supposed to be a giant. Right on.

Yeah.

Okay, so you were telling me what's interesting about your marriage. I'll go on side quests all the time. I love going on little side quests, but I wanna hear about the two of you some more.

Well, you know something? We've been married 30 years now coming up.

Okay.

Got a big trip planned to celebrate that. Looking forward to that. But here's the fact about us. We were both in marriages before we met.

Okay.

And those marriages weren't working. And so I think we learned stuff from that. One of the things I know that I learned is I learned better to speak up about what I was feeling and needing rather than just stuffing it to keep my wife from being upset with me.

Mm-hmm.

Or from hurting her feelings.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so that I ended up just with more and more resentments because I couldn't put voice to anything that was bothering me. And I decided when that marriage ended, if I ever did start dating or getting involved with anyone again, I wasn't going to do life that way. That just didn't work. So I think I learned from the negative experience to say what's true.

Yeah.

Not in a mean way, not in an aggressive way, but just to say what's true.

How did you learn that? Or did you just— it sounds like you decided, or did you—

I figured it out. I think I figured it out after— I think after so many years of doing it the opposite way, And then when I did try to put stuff out there, feeling totally ignored. It's like, no, I don't want this. I need this. Let's don't do that. And then it happened anyway. And that was sort of what put the nail in the coffin of that first marriage for me.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think that, and I think Carrie can share some of her experiences from her former marriage that I don't want to tell you what to say, Kerry, but that influences the way she is with me.

Yeah. Well, I was in an abusive relationship, really psychologically abusive, but it was also physical. I just didn't allow myself to realize that because there wasn't any broken bones or You know, I had bruises, but it was what I called manhandling.

Hmm.

I learned through that marriage that once I was able to get out of it, and it took me a long time to get out of it, uh, that I was never going to allow myself to be mistreated again. And no one was ever gonna tell me no ever again. Um, And in this relationship with Don, I think that has created for me a lifelong attitude of gratitude towards him, just forever and every day grateful for the person that I'm married to.

That's cool. So you got upgrades. You, you like, uh, you, you, you traded in one spouse and you, you got an upgrade for a new spouse.

You know, and I, I've been curious. about the differences between second and first marriages, since that's our experience. I've been curious about that and even thought about doing some writing along that. I haven't done that because I was even going to put a chapter in the book that—

Yeah.

But I decided not to because the, the— there is a disparity in, in divorce rate for second marriages. Divorce rate is 10% No, 20% higher for second marriages. And I always wondered why, since ours was so much better.

Yeah.

But then when I dug into that, it's all about blending families and stepchildren. And when you take that dynamic out, the differences in divorce rate disappears.

Pretty similar.

So yeah, it really is. So the sad— what I do believe is true is that the satisfaction rate for And this would be an interesting study. Satisfaction rate for second marriage versus first marriage are either much better or much worse.

Interesting.

Wait, but that's anecdotal. I don't have any proof of that, but that's just sort of the way I see it.

In your second— in your marriage together, did you not have to navigate parenting or blending children? Or you just—

Did we have a blended family? Um, I have 2 children from my first marriage and Don has a child. So, and my children were older. So my children were teenagers when we married. Uh, but Riley was—

5, almost 6 when we got married.

Yeah. We had Riley our whole, our whole lives together, really. All right.

So you make this trade, you get into the new second marriage, it's going Pretty smooth, but surely you've had your own challenges. What's, what's hard for the two of you? What's hard about being married to one another?

Go ahead, Don. I don't know.

I'm trying to think of something.

Uh, do you have a, do you have perpetual problems? What are you still, what are you still clashing about that you were clashing about 30 years ago?

We have perpetual problems. We have a difference about, uh, the meaning of being on time.

Yeah.

She's so neurotic about that.

Uh, evident.

She needs counseling.

She showed up first today for your podcast.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Who was sitting there and who logged on right at the dot. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And some of that is difference in background. I come from a very different family background, ethnic background than she does. And I think that contributes to part of that particular difference. But a lot of that is moderated. Even that one, we used to be kind of more the classic, uh, neat-messy dynamic, but that is not as true as it used to be.

But you're— you've confessed that you're sitting in front of an unmade bed, so whose issue is that?

Well, she didn't make it, so that's the problem. Uh, but, uh, the, the fact, the fact is the reason it's unmade is because I was— I went to play tennis this morning. I was laying around to the last minute and then had to jump up, take a shower, and walk the dog, so it didn't get— I didn't have time to make it.

And I can't make it if somebody's in it.

So there it is. So you're, so Dawn, you're perhaps maybe the more messy one. And, uh, and Carrie, you're, you fall on the neater side. Is that, is that what I'm discerning?

Yeah, that's true. However, uh, that dissertation—

I think that's moderated some though.

Yeah, that dissertation really did me and did a number on me. I had to let a lot of things go.

When we first got married, I was, uh, I was definitely in the like, who cares if you make the bed? We're just going to get back in it in a few hours anyway kind of mindset. But now I have actually become the one who has opinions about the bed being made. And then, and the deal that we have is that whoever gets out of bed last is the bed maker. Like when you get out of, if you're getting, if the second one out of bed, you have to make the bed. And, uh, I like that deal because I'm usually out of bed first.

But hey, that's a great deal 'cause I'm almost always outta bed first.

There you go.

I usually leave the house to play tennis at 5:15 in the morning and she's still in bed.

Rebecca recently confessed that sometimes she makes the bed at like 4:30 in the afternoon right before I'm about to come home from work.

So, we're trying to be— But I do believe perpetual over the years, perpetual differences like that for most couples that are doing well, they tend to, I think, you know, you tend to meet in the middle a little bit and they don't tend to be as corrosive or problematic as they might've been at one time. Do you agree with that, Carrie?

I do. Yeah. There were times when Don would agree to something or he would, I guess do things like accept invitations or invite people over or say, yes, we'll do that. Um, without consulting me, you know, like whoever he's with, they make these plans and then I'm not consulted, but, you know, we've had lots of conversations about that. Um, and he can learn. So.

Well, but you know, another factor about that is You know, you used to be more on the introverted side and me more on the extroverted side. But as we've aged, that has kind of reversed.

It has.

And, and I'm more, I'm more likely to say, why do we have to have these people over?

Which one of you is easier to be married to?

She definitely is.

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

I mean, she's just nice. And I'm not always nice.

Yeah. Well, he is pretty— so I was in an abusive relationship, so he is very easy to live with and very agreeable. And it's just really nice to have somebody that you can dialogue with and communicate with, and he will take my concerns. to heart. And so that has been delightful for me. So I would say he's really easy to live with as well.

It's the 3 magic words.

Yeah.

I tell guys this all the time in therapy and workshops, just say, but you got to mean it, the 3 magic words, which is, that makes sense.

That makes sense.

That makes sense. You don't have to agree. You don't have to say yes to everything your partner brings, but always find the rationale, the reasons, the thoughts that are behind what she's sending and see the sense in it. Okay, that makes sense that you want to invite them over, even though I may not want to. I see it. I get why you're doing that. That, you know, in Gottman lingo, we call that accepting influence. And every time I say that makes sense to my wife, she tends to smile.

I can feel my heart rate drop. I can feel it in my body. My heart rate just, whoo. And it's like, really? That makes sense?

Have the two of you ever done, done couples therapy? Like as a, as a couple?

No.

No. I wonder what that would be like.

Not yet.

I always wonder what that's like. People, you know, assume that I have a great marriage and I do, but it's definitely been the result of hard work and we've, we've had help a couple of times, but, um, I always wonder what it's like behind the curtain for folks that, that, that are doing this work outbound and then, then would submit themselves to like, I guess we have to get our own version of accountability or support or care.

Yeah. I'm not, I'm not averse to it if we ever needed it.

I think we actually, we walk the walk. We don't just talk the talk.

Mm-hmm.

And sometimes, you know, we have had arguments and that we've had to process, but we do believe in repair and repairing quickly. I think it isn't, it's, it, Really hurts me to have us feeling disconnected. I can't stand it, and I don't think you can stand it either, Don.

No.

No. Uh, so we have to do that and we do it quickly.

Yeah.

Because it feels so bad.

And we usually start actually by the responsibility thing, you know, where I'll start, hey, I'm sorry I snapped, or my word is barked. I'm sorry I barked at you, which I do have a tendency to do if I'm distracted and something, and then I snap and then it's like I realize I've done it and she tends to go away when I do that. She withdraws.

Okay.

I get flooded.

Zach, it's not so much that I realize, oh, she's upset. I got to go placate her. That's not the way it feels. It's more like, oh no, that's not the way you want to treat the woman you love. You don't want to talk to her that way. You crossed the line, go make it right. So it's not about placating her. It's about restoring the good.

Yeah. I think that if I, if people were to ask me like, what's the theme that comes across in Marriage Therapy Radio, all these interviews of couples that are getting it right? Like, what are they, what are they doing well? The theme that I think that that always emerges is that I, me Don, or me Carrie, I take care of my stuff. I take care of my side of the street. I'm willing to acknowledge or take responsibility for my thing. I think every healthy relationship that I've talked to has had some flavor of, of that in it, you know? So I can appreciate that leading with, you know, I'm sorry that I barked, or I'm sorry, or, you know, that makes sense that even if I don't like it, I can make sense. It feels like something really true about that, that I just Wanted to echo. How, how long have you guys been involved at the Institute? I started, I took my first training in 2004, but I didn't really, I didn't really finish anything until I didn't certify until 2014. By then you guys were, maybe you were there before 2004. I don't really recall, but I know that you'd been there a long time by the time I got there in '14.

We actually took our first training in 2001, but That was right after 9/11, so nobody was traveling. And so we took it on VHS videos.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, we were, we were supposed to go to Dallas. We were living in Houston. We were supposed to go to Dallas to— John was doing Level 1 solo at that time. And, uh, it was canceled because of the 9/11.

And this binder. It's like this thick. It's that thick. And there's just, just research papers in it, basically. And it's like, and he would say, turn to the— it's like, what page is this?

But, but, but, you know, Zach, it goes back before that in a way.

Yes, it does.

Even before Carrie and I were a couple, we worked together.

Okay.

And I asked her in a staff meeting, it was just the two of us, but I asked her, had she ever heard or read anything by John Gottman? Because I had been reading some of this stuff and it was making a lot of sense to me. And I had always tried to find an avenue to doing couples therapy that was helpful. And I had not found that in my professional world at that point. I was kind of frustrated with that. So I asked her that. And Carrie, you said?

Heard of him? I have everything he's ever written.

Oh, wow. Okay.

So that was like back in the mid-'90s.

So I put myself through undergraduate and graduate school. I was a research assistant for some social psychologists. So they taught me how to do research. And after I would do research and do these literature reviews for them on their subjects, I would go back to the library and I would do a literature review on Marriages because I was in a miserable marriage and I was told that it was all my fault. So I had to fix it. Um, and I was going to fix it. Uh, I was going to read and I would read all of these things and they didn't make sense. It's like, okay, I guess. And then I hit on John Gottman's work and it's like, oh my God, this guy has been sitting in my living room. Hmm.

You know, so then it was in that late, mid to late '90s that the training program was announced.

Okay.

And we wanted to do it. We lived in, in a small town in Central Texas. We had kids in college, kids in school. We didn't have the money to do it right away. Plus, it was really hard to do if you didn't live locally in Seattle at that time, the way it was organized. You had to meet.

I took Level 1 here. Oh, well, I took, actually, this is funny. I took level 1 in Seattle, but I took level 2 here. I'm currently in Los Angeles. Like I flew to Los Angeles to take level 2 because of how sporadic the, the, like the training offerings were and where he was headed and what he was doing. I remember I was, uh, after it was over, we were both on the same shuttle to the airport. And I was like starstruck. I was like, oh my God, there's, there's John Gottman. He's— and what he would have been, I don't know. 60 at that point or something. So even whatever, but I would just remember that I was, I don't know, same thing, big old binder, room full of people. But I am interested to know how each of you, before we get too far into the, the chronology, Don, you said you're sitting there, you look at it and go, okay, this makes sense.

Mm-hmm.

Or, Carrie, you're looking at it and you're like, oh, okay, I got it. What was that? What was the first, what was like the thing that you saw that made you go, This is different. This is the, this is the new thing, or this is the thing I'd been looking for. Do you know what it was?

For me, it was the Four Horsemen.

Okay.

Uh, it's like, yes, that is exactly what I'm experiencing every day of my life.

You know, that, that's funny, Carrie, because we've never talked about that, but that's exactly, uh, My first thought too, reading about the destructiveness of the Four Horsemen and realizing how often I saw that in my couples and that as a therapist, I didn't, it wasn't my job just to sit and listen to that, but was to actually help couples change that, that criticism defensiveness dynamic. That was the first thing I think that really jumped out at me as I as a power. But then what I was going to say about that is that, so we wanted to do that training program for years before we ever got started on it.

That's okay.

That was the rest of that story.

Because you couldn't move, because you, because, because it was so sporadic and all over the place and we didn't really have, uh, you had to be like in the right place at the right time. Yeah.

We lived in Texas and back then you had to go come up here once a month. You had to, so we would have had to have flown up here every month and I didn't, you know, we both wanted to do it, so we weren't going to choose, well, you go do it. Yeah.

So we came up here in '05 for Level 2 and then '06 for Level 3, and we immediately went into the training program and finished it within a few months, the consultation phase. And got through certification within about 4 months of actually starting to meet with Bill, our consultant. And so, yeah, we started about the same time as you did, but we jumped in with—

Invested a lot more.

Yeah.

Now I want to ask this question, which is you have these 2 different roles, these 2 different titles. One of you is kind of a clinician in the title. The other one is a researcher in the title. When you look at the thing, even the Four Horsemen, or you look at a couple, an actual couple comes into the space, do the two of you come at it from different lenses, different angles? How do you each, how do you each navigate the, this, this body, this methodology through the lens of, say, clinician versus researcher? Or do you know?

I think when we are in the role of working with a couple, we are both clinicians. In fact, I think Carrie is a superior clinician to me in the sense that she's more intuitive. She sees things faster than I do, where I have to kind of work them out in my brain. I think she understands what's happening because I've seen her do that. There have been those few blessed times when we've actually been in the same room with a couple, and I see her pick up on dynamics that It's like, oh, I didn't see that right away. So I think she's more intuitive than me, but in terms of style. But I think we both approach it clinicians. The clinical director and research director role, those are administrative jobs that don't really have a lot to do with how we do our clinical work with couples.

Got it. It raises another question for me though. Okay. Did you want to speak to that, Carrie?

Yeah, I will say that running the Love Lab has given me a little different lens by which I do maybe assessment. And a big part of that is the observation, the SPAFF coding, and learning to really pick up on those real subtle facial expressions, things like that. And also kind of the The intersection between emotional affect and how that impacts couples in their relationships. So some of that is what John calls, you know, he's created this mathematical analysis that has phase space diagrams. We don't really use the phase space in the way in which I learned it because it's really complex and complicated. But the dynamic of that and how there's these, these places where this couple intersects. And one place that's really important is emotional affect. And how does one person's emotional affect affect the other partner's emotional affect? And it's a really bad sign when one person's emotional affect has absolutely no influence on the other person's emotional affect. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So if they're both positive together, that's great. And also if they're both negative together, that's in some ways a good sign.

It's better.

But when one person is negative and the other person is neutral or positive, their emotional affect, actually, they enjoy that person feeling bad, uh, it's a really bad sign for the relationship. Those are things that you can't always fix.

Yeah. I was going to say, how do you fix that? Like, how do you, like, what, what's the remedy or the soothing of that for that couple?

Well, you really work at whether they can accept influence from each other and whether they can have empathy for the other person. And if they cannot, and you can't pull that empathy out of them for the other, the writing is kind of on the wall.

The Gottman-Rapoport idea is really the path to that. Tell your partner what you're feeling, what you're needing, and see if that person can really tune into that and take it in. Not just intellectually, but effectively. Can they take it in? Because even without doing the full Love Lab, that idea that Carrie's talking about is probably the primary thing I give in feedback. Are you guys— because think of it this way, Zach. If Carrie and I are having a conversation and she's really upset and I'm feeling great and we analyze that conversation separately and I analyze it like, hey, that was a great conversation.

Glad we got that figured out.

Yeah. And she's analyzing it like, that felt terrible. Well, that's a really bad sign for the quality of the relationship. So to really put them in a situation where they have to slow it down, they have to listen. Does it always work? No, nothing always works, but you can at least try to treat it when you know it's there.

Because I know what you're talking about, but nobody else in the world does. What do you mean when you say the Rapoport Intervention or the Rapoport Idea?

It's a style of conversation where we put people— we have people talk in a speaker-listener model with the goal of understanding one another's feelings and needs and to summarize their partner's feelings and needs. At the level of acceptance. So Carrie tells me, this is what I feel, this is what I need. I say, okay, Carrie, this is what I just heard. And she says, yep, that's it. That's me in a nutshell. That's me trying— that's what I'm trying to get across to you. It's the level of her acceptance that matters, that she knows I've heard her.

And that really takes me— So the third thing is the thing that matters. The first thing is Carrie saying, X bothers me. The second thing is saying, it's Don saying, I hear you, that I get it, I understand. And then the third thing is Carrie going, okay, thank you for that. I appreciate that you get it. I agree. And that's the part that matters the most.

I think the third thing has to do with, you know, his understanding my emotional pain. I think that's the thing that, that really is the part, that validation piece where, you know what, it makes sense given that that's your experience. that you would've felt hurt or angry or sad or disappointed or embarrassed about, right?

And there's that phrase again, it makes sense.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm tuning in and even though I may not be able to feel it the same way, I can understand why she felt it and care about that.

Now, again, The caring about it is important.

Do I care that she felt that way or do I not? And if I don't, well, yeah, those marriages tend not to last.

Okay. All right. I got a couple more questions. I wanna make sure that we get to the casebook. Uh, but you've, you've prompted something for me when you, um, if you think about the Gottman Method and even the two of you and how you're different, I'm probably even different from the two of you. And then there's clinicians all over the world. They're dealing with different cultures. There's people who are new, people who are young. If we watched, if we lined up 10, 10 Gottman therapists and we said, okay, here's the work. I wanna see you do it. I wanna see you do it. And we see 10 different expressions of the work. What would you say is the expected through line? Like what's the thing that those 10 people should have in common?

As a video reviewer for the Gottman Institute, I see a lot of this. And the one thing that I would expect every certified Gottman therapist to do is to be able to recognize those Four Horsemen: criticism, defensiveness, contempt. We usually don't see stonewalling in those videos, but to recognize that and to stop it immediately and to provide the antidote. And if necessary, walk that individual through that antidote, but make sure that they do know what the antidote is and how to How to stop it, how to correct it. And I would also say to be able to know when to use which Gottman intervention because you cannot use a hammer when you need to be using a screwdriver.

Right. Don, that's what you would say?

Yeah, very definitely. And also being able to recognize physiological shifts. when people are getting flooded?

Yes.

We talk about using— we use pulse oximeters a lot in therapy and we teach our trainees to do that. Not everybody does it all the time, but even if you're not using a pulse oximeter or if you're meeting over Zoom or something and it's hard to do that, do you recognize when somebody's body is changing? Because when their body is changing into a fight or flight mode, Because they're feeling upset. And those feelings lead to those, that heart pounding and that mouth getting dry and stuff like that. People are different in that physical state. And the therapist who doesn't recognize that really misses a big opportunity to be helpful and also sometimes even does harm. So I would want every therapist to really be able to tune into those, those physical changes.

What's the easiest way for a Gottman therapist or a couples therapist to do harm?

The easiest way? Carrie, you got a thought about that?

Yeah. Side with one person over the other. Okay.

What if that one person is being, uh, like, is justifiably, uh, like, has a justified gripe or beef, or, um, the position in the relationship is lopsided enough that that person needs care and support.

You can, you, you do care and support them, but you do not do that at the expense of the other person. Relationships are complex. Um, and you know, we need to honor and, and value each individual in, within that couple dyad. And treat them with dignity and respect.

Now, there are times when the presenting problem in therapy is being, let's say there's been an affair.

Yeah.

And you have to start with the pain caused by the betrayal.

Sure.

And that is a lopsided conversation, if you will. Or when there's been aggression where one person is the aggressor and the other one just withdraws when there's aggression. Well, that's lopsided and you have to do some repair, some atoning work. But it's not a matter of siding with one or the other. It's a matter of direction for repair.

Yeah, I get that. I think I'm inclined to take sides, but what I always tell couples is that I'm going to I'll take the side of relationality. And taking the side of relationality means sometimes you have to confront bad behavior. And so, but I do think you can do harm by confronting bad behavior at the cost of, or the expense of someone's dignity or someone's, you know, safety. So I can get behind that. Let's talk about the casebook for a second. I plugged in this middle question that I didn't, I wanted to make this really elegant transition between we've lined up 10 Gottman therapists and what's the thing they have in common? Here you have this book, and it might be 10 chapters, right? Like, uh, it's a little more than that, actually. Like, you got 10 or 12?

17.

17. Okay. So you got 17 chapters written by 17 different, uh, perspectives on different topics. What's the through line? What's the through line of this book that people ought to be aware of and know about so that they can use it to benefit their work?

Couples therapy involves more than just the relationship itself almost all the time.

Yeah.

The study that you were part of, Carrie, with the 42,000 couples showed that, right? That almost all the couples who came in carry with them other issues, comorbidities.

Yep.

Whether that's aggression or affairs or eating disorders or sexual—

Yeah, depression.

Depression.

Yeah.

Trauma, all kinds of things. So every chapter in that book is dedicated to that kind of— almost all of them are dedicated to that kind of idea. How do you do couples therapy when there's a personality disorder? How do you do couples therapy when there's an addiction, when there's depression or PTSD or neurodiversity? And this was really based on the original work from back in 2001, I think, that Julie wrote the first case or edited the first casebook with that. And we've expanded it and added different ideas. But the whole idea is that almost everybody who comes to us for help are dealing with more than just a relationship. And we have to be sensitive to those issues as well.

Mm-hmm.

Right, Carrie?

Right. Yeah.

And you wrote, you wrote a chapter on depression.

I contributed to a large— I was just about to ask you if you had a favorite chapter, if you had a favorite one or favorite contributor that you wanted to call out right now in front of 7 billion people who are gonna be listening to this podcast. Like, what was your favorite chapter in the book? Um, but what was it? What, like, uh, I, I'm kidding, but like, What did you learn? Did you guys learn anything? Did you learn anything from editing the book that you might have taken home to your own house, your own marriage? Like, what was the thing that you look at it and you go, oh man, I'm glad to have that perspective that I didn't have before I read this chapter?

Well, the one I would say, but it's not about a personal thing, but just because of the way the chapter was written, which is Jordan Rulo's chapter on sex therapy and the intersection with couples therapy. She's expert in both, and I've heard her present and respect her highly. And yeah, I think that would be the one I would call out to say, make sure you read that chapter. Cool.

I definitely will. Carrie, what would you say? Do you have a pet chapter that you loved or that you loved hearing about or working on?

Well, I think one that really calls some attention to something that we ignore a lot is Kim Lamson's eating disorders.

Hmm.

And, you know, body image, whether that is somebody who is struggling with some kind of OCD, kind of, you know, working out all the time, having to be physically fit, the binge eater, but also just the people who are you know, that have body image issues. And, you know, I think there's a lot of struggle with weight in our culture. And, you know, women in particular struggle with body image, whether it's— we're always— we're too something. We're too fat, we're too thin, too short, we're too tall, we're too muscular. You know, too.

Yeah, that's interesting.

If I, if I could add one more real quick, Zach, it would be Bill Bunbury's chapter on the disaffected couple, couples whose energy is drained so low, it's hard to get them to interact. And as an older person now, I'm 70, doing therapy, a lot of my couples are in my age group. And you see more of that as people have gone through time together. Uh, so I found that a very helpful, uh, chapter that he wrote about dealing with couples where the energy has just dissipated.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're not even arguing anymore. They're not doing the Four Horsemen. They're just flat.

Killing time. Yeah. That's intriguing. Sounds like a, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a powerful resource. I'm honored to be a part of it. It begs one question for me that I'm, um, I don't think I intended to ask, but I wonder what you two think is, are there things, are there limitations to the methodology? Are there limitations to the Gottman Method? Are there things that it can't do or things that it can do? address that requires some other angle or some other attention. Have you bumped up against those in your work?

I haven't. That's one of the things that I really love about it, you know, that it incorporates so much. And even working with those comorbidities, you know, there's an avenue for that. And I think anytime You know, the, the basic premise is getting couples into dyadic conversations with each other. And when you can get them interacting with each other and you're in the room, you can observe in real time what this couple is actually like. And I think that, and there's the opportunity to intervene when, you know, they're actually interacting with each other, even though it's a little bit. they're a little bit better behaved because they're in front of someone, you still see that dynamic pop out between the two of them.

Mm-hmm.

And I love being able to intervene in that moment, to step in, to fix that part and step back out and let them see if they can fix it on their own. And I've been, you know, I do, I do primarily marathon therapy, so I get to observe this same couple for 3 days in a row, really get to know them and really can go take a deep dive and help them make some positive changes. And they start to catch themselves after a while, after the first couple of hours. Oh, darn it. I'm doing it again.

Yes.

So I love that part.

I would say in answer to your question, Zach, if there's one place it would be the ambivalent couple where one person is in and one person is out, and getting them to talk about the in and out and the pros and cons of being in and out. I find that, and I know there are approaches, discernment therapy and so on, that really addresses that a little bit more directly than we do, and I would like to learn more about that interface. But I find those couples to be particularly difficult to use because there's this, I think, a basic assumption in Gottman Method is that people want to make things better.

Sure.

It's not always true that they both want that and how to step in in those situations, I still find that. And then of course, relapse. Because how do you prevent relapse? We have some ideas, but it's always a factor.

Yeah, yeah, right on. Uh, it bumps up against one more question, then I'm gonna— we're gonna run out of time. I'm so fascinated though. If you think about, uh, is there anything in the method that— that— or in John's work that you could look at and go, I think a really good Gottman therapist or a really good therapist might disagree with this? Like, I'm willing to disagree with John on this point. Are there— are there outlying Parts of it for either one of you?

It's hard to disagree with, with really good science backed up by mathematical analysis. Yeah.

Um, I was going to say the same thing. There's, you know, it's like, it's not really disagreeing with John Gottman. It's disagreeing with the science.

Evidence.

Yeah. And it's hard for me to disagree with evidence.

Yeah, I get that.

You know, I, I think I'm safe in saying—

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

He can be taught.

And John has changed his mind around about things over the years.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. Yeah.

So we don't feel like we've got all the answers.

It's interesting because, of course, we spend a lot of time with John and Julie. But one of the things that he was saying the last time we spoke a couple of weeks ago is, I'm really, he said, I'm really, I'm really questioning whether the positive perspective cannot be a verb. So every level of the Sound Relationship House is really a verb, you know, update love maps, you know, create love maps, you know, turn towards and—

Share, turn. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I got it.

Is the positive perspective only a, uh, uh, a result of other factors or can it be addressed directly?

Right. And it's like, uh, so he said that's the thing that he's really been questioning. Uh, and I thought that was interesting. Here he is, uh, in his, in his 80s and going, what about that positive perspective?

Yeah, I love it. He's still thinking about it. Listen, I'm so grateful that 2 of you came on. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you want to say or share before we, uh, before we have to wrap it up? Is it, what is the, what's your pitch for the, for the book? I'm happy to, I'll, I'll, I'll make sure to hit it on the intro and the outro, but what is it? What is it that you want to leave our listeners with?

If you like audiobooks, it is going to be available as an audiobook.

Okay. Who's going to read it?

A woman, uh, Mellie somebody.

Uh, they hired a professional book reader, but not, but not the authors of the chapters. You're not, you're not calling on me to come in and put in studio time for that.

No, no, you're off the hook.

You're off the hook. We had that pitch earlier, Zach. We could have—

Oh, no, thank you. I, I do not envy that job at all. Um, and I would kick it to Lawrence anyway. I'd be like, hey man, here, this is your baby. So let's, let's make it happen. Um, well, thanks again for coming on. I, uh, really appreciate you and your leadership at the Institute. And, uh, look forward to sharing this episode with people. It'll probably be in the next couple weeks. When does the book come out?

Uh, the book comes out this month, right, Carrie?

Uh, end of September. So I think either the 29th or the 30th, something like that.

Yeah, it's in presales now, but yeah, it's coming out.

Perfect. Yeah, I'll put it out next week so that, so that people—

And thanks for your contribution to it as well, Zach.

My pleasure. Yeah, I, it was a, that was a personal favor to Lawrence. I was happy to help him cuz you know, he's, he's Lawrence and he is, um, so it was a, my, it was good and I learned a lot just by working with, uh, through his case with him. So that was, uh, it was intriguing.

Good. Well, thank you for what you do. I follow you on Instagram and, you know, these podcasts, the things that you do are fun and I think helpful to people.

I'm glad for it. Okay, Don and Kerry Cole, appreciate you both.

Thanks.

Take care.