IS IT ADULTERY?

Last Friday, Harriet commented that she thought it was silly to think that a less than 5 to 1 positive to negative communication ratio constituted adultery. I'm sticking to my position. Marriage is a relationship where both partners vowed to love and cherish each other. Certainly there will be times in that relationship when one will feel like neither loving nor cherishing, but that doesn't diminish the responsibility to act in a loving and cherishing way.

Dr. John Gottman has done a lot of research in the area of marital communication. As I recall, he is the one who stated that when the positive to negative communication ratio falls below 5 positives to 1 negative, the marriage is not healthy. Negatives weigh a lot more than positives, so everyone needs a lot of positive strokes.

When I was the interim executive director at Midwest Christian Services, I interviewed an applicant who had been fired from a well-known residential treatment facility. I asked her the reason for her dismissal. She said, "I didn't keep up my positive to negative communication ratio of 7 to 1. " At that time Midwest wasn't even tracking that for employee evaluation. I hired her and she worked fine for us. It is interesting, though, that even residential treatment facilities recognize this as a requisite for effective treatment of kids!

Harriet, your husband might be acting as if everything is okay, but inside things are not. Solomon didn't write this for nothing, "It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman" (Proverbs 21:9).

If you are not being kind to your spouse 5 times as much as being negative, are you keeping the vow?

Grace&Peace;
Tom