Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
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In today's episode, we're going to be going over Gottman's second principle, which is nurturing fondness and admiration. And what this principle is really trying to help you do is to cherish your partner and recognize their good qualities, celebrating their wins, seeing the best in them even during rough patches.
According to Gottman's research, couples who practice consistent fondness and admiration have a deeper sense of connection and resilience, making them better equipped to handle conflict or stress in life. And in particular, this is very helpful when you're navigating trauma or difficult transitions. When you actively nurture fondness and admiration, it creates an emotional cushion. It reminds bulk parties of why they chose each other in the first place.
So let's dive into how this works and how you can apply this to your life. So let's take a second and let's define fondness and admiration. Fondness is the affection side, where you genuinely like and appreciate your partner. It's noticing their quirks or strengths that make them unique and expressing warmth towards them. Admiration is about respect and esteem. You admire qualities in your partner like integrity, work ethic, kindness, and hold those traits in high regard.
When we talk about nurturing those feelings, we mean that you're actively choosing to focus on your partner's positive attributes. and you're being really intentional, reminding yourself of what you love and respect about them. It's a shift in mindset from what annoys me about you to what do I truly value about you.
So it's purposeful and intentional. And this doesn't mean ignoring issues or glossing over real problems, but it means you're balancing out that negativity by staying connected to the reasons you appreciate your partner, especially during those challenging moments. And maybe not even balancing it out, but you're trying to tip it in the favor of your relationship and your partner. So you're not trying to have that equal negative to positive, but you're really looking at what do I love about them?
What do I appreciate? What do I admire? And I think one of the things that oftentimes happens in relationships is that it becomes very easy to focus on the negative, and it's not as natural to focus on the positive aspects.
Because those negative aspects, they have a tendency to kind of poke at you and then they stand out a little bit more than the positives and it's not that the negatives are actually more powerful or that there's more of a multitude of negatives but we're more naturally geared towards focusing on those negatives. So Gottman's research shows that that fondness and admiration act almost like that protective shield for relationships.
Inevitably, life's going to bring us all stress. There's going to be disagreements in your relationship. But when that happens, remembering your partner's good qualities will help you to approach those conflicts with more empathy and less defensiveness. And it also prevents what Gottman calls the negative sentiment override, where you start seeing everything that your partner does through a negative lens.
And I think what couples really struggle with is that then they start interpreting, maybe your partner has positive intent, but you start interpreting it with a negative intent. And so just like you were saying, it causes you to view everything with a negative bent, regardless of what your partner's actual intent was. But instead, if your default mindset is I admire you and I'm fond of you, you're more likely to interpret their actions in a compassionate way.
And you're more likely to give them that benefit of the doubt. And I think this is really important over the long haul of a relationship of giving your partner that benefit of the doubt, because there are many things that oftentimes we're filtering through our own emotional reaction and our fear of what their intent is cause us to react to them in negative ways. But if we give them that benefit of the doubt, we're going to have a lot more positive interactions.
Or if then that causes us to then seek out and ask clarifying questions like, hey, would you mind explaining a little bit of your motivation behind that? As opposed to saying more of a leading question like well I think you did that because of this that and the other thing and so you're kind of attacking them with the question and then it creates this unnecessary conflict all of a sudden.
Versus if you give them that benefit of the doubt, you're able to sidestep a whole conflict that was unnecessary. And so this ties directly into healing trauma and having personal growth. If one or both parties have dealt with childhood trauma, anxiety, codependency, working at cultivating fondness and admiration can be a grounding force. It can remind you of the safety and positivity present in the relationship. Even when old fears or triggers pop up.
This is an exercise I take my clients through frequently when, in session, they are challenging the other person's intent, or they're challenging what they believe their motivations are. And I always like to ask, did you marry an evil, vindictive liar who hates you and only wants bad for you? And I phrase it in an intentional, hyperbolic way to get them to stop and think, okay, well, actually, that is kind of how I'm talking about them.
Like, they're this devil incarnate whose only aim is to harm me. But then when I ask that question, like, well, no, they're a good person, they don't tend to lie, and I know they never want to hurt me.
And so then it helps to ground them in that moment and be like, okay, well, why if I know that that's actually who they are, why in this moment am I interpreting their actions as evil or bad, as opposed to who I've known them to be through the course of our relationship as they are generally a good person who might make mistakes or who might hurt me unintentionally or who in a flare of anger might say something nasty, but that's not really what they think or believe about me.
And this is especially important if you are going through some kind of trauma in your relationship. Maybe there's been a betrayal and they haven't been honest with you. It's easy to have that negative lens and anything that maybe they forgot to tell you or you hadn't talked about but happened to come up somewhere else. It's easy to immediately jump to the conclusion that they're withholding from you again or see they're lying again.
You're beginning to find all these things because you're seeing through that negative lens. And like I said, we're not trying to ignore the problems in the relationship, but you wanna see it through different lens and say, okay, there has been a betrayal. But I can see that he is trying to work on it. I can see that together we're trying to restore our marriage. So I'm going to give him the benefit of doubt and I'll bring it up and I'll talk with him.
But I'm not going to immediately vilify him and have this as a confirmation in my mind that he's continuing to lie to me. And that's hard, especially if, like we've talked about in the past, where you are in a trauma in your relationship where information is slowly leaked out. and another bomb is dropped and another bomb is dropped. So at that point, you are waiting for more bad news. And it's hard in the face of all of that to then put on this admiration and fondness.
But it's so important that if you're trying to restore your marriage, to change those lens out because it'll give you such a better chance of survival as a married couple. Everything too, there's this other aspect. So let's say your spouse isn't the most honest or trustworthy or capable person. When you are working at nurturing that fondness and admiration, you can actually help coax them more that direction. So if there's areas where they have failed or maybe even are consistently failing.
Still trying to create that fondness and admiration can help them have a goal to attain to. And, oh, I want to be better for them. Look at how they're loving me or how they admire me.
I want to live up to that standard. and a lot of times that can feel very counterintuitive to people but people have a tendency to live up to what people regularly tell them they are and so if you're regularly telling your spouse you're a liar i don't trust you you're awful a lot of times they actually kind of lean into it it's not an intentional conscious thought but because that's what they're being told all the time and even their
actions may affirm that then they start just believing well that's just who i am and so they kind of give over to it versus if you're nurturing that fondness and admiration I respect you, you're amazing, you're wonderful, I appreciate you, I trust you, they're going to want to lean more into that to affirm those positive things that you're saying about them, even if they're not quite living up to it yet. So let's talk about practical steps to help you foster this fondness and admiration.
How do we nurture these positive feelings day to day? One strategy is daily appreciation moments. An example of this could be to take a minute each day, maybe at breakfast or before bed, to name one thing you admire about your partner. It can be as simple as, I love how hard you work to support our family. Or I appreciate how you remember little details about my day. Or I appreciate that you cook for our family.
This habit keeps your mindset focused on positives even when you're busy and stressed. If you're consistently doing this, it almost causes you to search for things throughout the day so you'll be able to have something at the end of the day to share. The next thing that you can do is you can create a fondness and admiration jar. So what you would do is you might write down a few notes expressing gratitude or highlighting a trait that you love and you drop it in the jar.
And once a week, or maybe even once a month, you sit down together and you read them out loud. This turns admiration into a shared ritual and makes the positivity tangible. And one of the things is, I think a lot of times that happens, couples a lot of times they don't stop and reinforce the positives that they appreciate about each other. And so even though something may happen, you may be like, oh, I appreciate that, but you don't say anything about it, you just note it.
Then your partner is missing out on the benefit of receiving that moment of admiration from them, or of appreciation. Because again, focusing on the negative I think is very natural, but focusing on the positive requires extra effort to do that. And so doing some type of ritual like this can really help to reinforce those positive admirations and feelings. The next one is mindful compliments. And this can go along with the daily appreciation moments.
But when you're making compliments, instead of generic praise, like, oh, you're so awesome, or I'm so thankful for you, be specific and describe why it's important to you or why you're thankful for it. So say something like, I really admire how patient you were with the kids today. And actually, this is a funny one. And I very naturally stumbled on this one myself because Ruth will give me a compliment.
And a lot of times it's out of context where there's not something that's happening right now that seems connected to the compliment. Oh, you're such a good dad or you're such an amazing husband or she'll say something like that. And I'll always back that up. And I appreciate what she says, but I want to know why. Why do I want to know why? Because I want to live more up to that. Right. Oh, you were such a great dad. Oh, well, what made you say that right
now? Oh, I was just thinking about how you're playing with the kids or how you're doing that. And it just filled my heart with joy. Or she might say something like that. But that specific compliment, again, why do I want a deeper information? It's not because I want additional praise in that moment, but it's because I want to know what I did that made her feel fondness or admiration for me so that I can continue to go that way.
And I think it makes it more meaningful, too, because throughout the day, I'll tell you that I love you. But correct me if I'm wrong, it's more meaningful if I point out specifically what I love about you. Like, I love when we laugh together, or I love when we sat down and watched that movie and the kids were all over and you were totally fine with it and playing with them. Oh, yeah, it totally does make it more meaningful.
And I think just in our household, the word I love you is such a free flowing thing. It happens all the time. But then when you add on that little bit of additional explanation, it makes it feel more personal and it makes it feel more positive. Another thing that you could do is memory lane conversations. Spend time reminiscing about your favorite memories or milestones. Talk about what you admire about each other in those moments and how it influences your appreciation today.
And Ruth and I, a lot of times this will come out when we're going through and we're looking at the myriad of photos that was taken over a vacation or over the week or something like that. And we'll just sit down, we'll review things, and we'll talk about it, and it'll spark our memories. And so that for us is a very natural way where we go down memory lane when we're just reviewing photos that have been taken of our family.
Another good time to do this is maybe on your anniversary to sit down and if you have a video, watch the video together. Or if you have pictures, go through your wedding pictures together. Or this reminds me a little bit of that fondness and admiration jar.
I think in one of our New Year's episodes, maybe a couple years ago, we talked about creating a jar throughout the year where when you have fun experiences, just like with the fondness and admiration jar, you put in whatever that memory is and you just throw it in that jar and at the end of the year, you sit down and you go through those memories together.
But just sitting and having that experience together, recalling positive shared memories and experiences can help you re-experience that together, but also remind you of all the things you've done together, remind you of how far you've come. And the last strategy we'll talk about is fondness and admiration check-ins. So with all of these strategies, one of the things to remember is to keep it genuine.
You don't want forced compliments or over-the-top flattery, and it doesn't feel genuine and doesn't foster that deep connection that you're really looking for. The goal is sincere acknowledgement of what's truly special about your partner. And if you're feeling distant or struggling to find these positives, just start smart. We're not looking for these over-the-top things. It really is the daily things that often get overlooked.
But if you can highlight it and acknowledge it, it can allow them to know that you see them and that you appreciate what they're doing. Maybe it's even, I appreciate that you lock the doors at night. I appreciate that you kind of close up the house. Or I love when you text me funny memes.
All of these tiny bits of appreciation add up so we're going to end there for today but we're going to continue this conversation in the next episode where we'll focus more on obstacles to fondness and admiration and how to overcome them so today i want you to stop find your spouse and tell them something specific about why you love them or what you noticed about today that just spread a smile to your face. All right, you guys have a great day. And remember, your mind is a powerful thing.
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Although we are mental health providers, this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide diagnosis or treatment. If you are struggling with persistent mental health issues, chronic marital issues, or feeling hopeless or suicidal, you are not alone. Help is available. Please seek professional help or call the National Suicide Hotline at 988. Thank you again for joining us on Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Remember, there's always hope and there's always help. Music.