How to be Crazy

about your marriage

and your kids …

without going crazy

in the process!

David & Elizabeth Fawcett, Ph. D, LMFT

C R A Z YCommunication

Routines and Rituals

Attachment and Affection

proZaics

You

C-razy: Communication

Message

Send

Interpret

Effective Communication• The process of sending a message in such a

way that the message received is as close as possible to the message intended.

• Effective communicators pay as much attention to How they’re sending their message as to the words they are using.

• If you believe that people generally have a positive intent, how can you find it in what your partner is saying?

Feedback

• Psychological Safety must be modeled

• When there isn’t safety, people move toward silence or violence.

• Silence fails (85%)

• The limiting factor of all communication is not the riskiness of the message, but how to create conditions of safety to address the content. We can be right, but relationally wrong.

Crucial Conversations

Stop the “4 horsemen” Replace with these Antidotes

Criticism

Defensiveness

Contempt

Stonewalling

Gentle

Start-up

Take

Responsibility

Build a Culture of

Appreciation

Do physiological

self-soothing

C-razy: Commitment

Commitment in Healthy Relationships

1. The first key to cultivating commitment is making the relationship primary. With

many demands on our time, sometimes our marriages only get small

fragments of leftover time and energy. … Some couples work in the yard

together. Some cook together.

2. A second key to cultivating commitment is setting limits on intrusions. For

commitment to thrive, a couple must be willing to set some boundaries.

3. A third key to commitment is building rituals of connection. Each couple can

design rituals of connection that will sustain relationship commitment. Some

couples worship together or take classes together and share their discoveries

with each other. Some couples take time for hugging, walking, running, or

other exercising. Any activity that helps a couple to feel close can strengthen

and support commitment.

Commitment & Communication

Brent & Susan Barlow

“Everybody used to think it was love. If you just love each other. But you can be in love with someone you aren’t committed to. So, I say Commitment is the number one thing. And you have to commit some time to your marriage to build it.”

“If we have a disagreement or a bad day, we just say, ‘Let’s just start over. Let’s just start over tomorrow… Let’s not try to figure out who caused it or what it is. Let’s just start over and give each other the benefit of the doubt.”

Married June 5, 1965

c-R-azy: Routines & Rituals

Routines & Rituals

• Management strategies

• Structure

• Demarks time

• Supported by others

• Planning

• Belonging to the group

• Emotional containment

• Commitment to the future

• Emotional lineage

• Consecration of the past

• Would be missed and noted

by family members if absent

Routines & Rituals – Early Marriage• Challenge: creating a set of daily routines that fit the

rhythms of the individuals and determining which rituals

will be carried forward from which side of the family.

• Couple Time Rituals: sports, hobbies, games, movies

• Togetherness Rituals – setting aside time to be together

• Escape episodes – provide an escape/leave home

• Private Codes: tied to couple identity

• Conflicts primarily concerned leisure and household expenditures

Daily Living Routines

Negatively related to parents’

reports of problem behaviors.

• Household responsibilities

• Discipline routines

• Homework routines

“Children who have experienced

regular routines and have been part

of creating meaningful rituals may

be better prepared to meet the

challenges of school.

Family routines at four years of age

predicted academic achievement

at nine years of age.

Families who maintained a high

degree of commitment to their

rituals and valued the emotional

connections they experienced

during their family gatherings over

the five year period had children

who scored the highest on tests

of academic achievement.”

- Barbara Fiese

• In a study of 4,746 adolescents, frequency of family meals

was associated with better grades and less cigarette,

alcohol and marijuana use.

(Eisenberg et al., 2004)

Family Meal Time

• In a study of 2,818 children

between birth and age twelve, time

spent in family activities, including

mealtime, was associated with fewer

problem behaviors.

(Hofferth and Sandberg, 2001)

…the most important rituals for a family will be the ones that evolved

spontaneously and often with a sense of humor.

It is the ordinary routines of family life that make this important group so

extraordinary.” (Barbara Fiese, 2006)

“Reading a bedtime story, weekly pizza

night, or calling out the same greeting

when returning home are the moments

that come to define what it means to

belong to a family.

These routine times are rarely elaborate

events nor are they even cause for

comment. Yet, they form the memories

and scrapbooks of family life.

cr-A-zy: Attachment & Affection

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”

ARE you there for me?

• A = Accessible

• R = Responsive

• E = Emotionally engaged

We know from all the hundreds of studies on love that

have emerged during the past decade that emotional

responsiveness is what makes or breaks love relationships.

Happy stable couples can quarrel and fight, but they also

know how to tune into each other and restore emotional

connection after a clash. – Sue Johnson

Turning Toward

Do you receive bids for connection?

Do you laugh at jokes?

Do you recognize support?

Marriage Masters: 86% of the time they receive it,

much of the times it’s with enthusiasm

Marriage Disasters: 33% of the time they receive it,

but it’s frequently with irritation.

Attachment across Generations

• Secure parent-child relationships lead us to be more self-confident and socially confident, more likely to view others as trustworthy and dependable, and more comfortable with and within relationships. (Topham, Larson, Holman, 2005).

• Secure adults are more satisfied in their relationships and use conflict strategies that focus on maintaining the relationship instead of “winning.” (Strong, DeVault, Cohen, 2011, p. 247)

• compromise, cooperation, assertiveness

cra-Z-y: Prosaic (pro-ZAY-ic)

Poetry vs. Prose

The Anatomy of Trust

• Trust is built in very small moments – Brene Brown

“The spirit of celebration can turn us from burdened pilgrims to

purposeful travelers.

It can transform us from task-oriented wardens of our children to

happy playmates.

It can renovate relationships that are hollow by renewing the spirit

of appreciation.”

Celebrate the little things

craz-Y: You

Self-Care & Self-Advocacy

• We are never so vulnerable as when we love – Freud

• We must figure out how to balance our need for

autonomy and our need for togetherness, how to

manage effective inter-dependence.

Luciano L’Abate

Love of

Other

Love of Self

High Low

High 1 2

Low 3 4Selfish No-Self

High Low

Low

High Self-lessSelf-full

We aren’t perfect at this.