Episode 12. How to Transform Conflict into Connection with Marital Autopsies
In this episode of Marriage IQ we share an incredibly useful strategy of conducting what we call a “marriage autopsy." The idea is that after a conflict, relapse into bad habits, or any difficult situation in your marriage, you carefully examine what happened step-by-step, without blame or judgment. Basically do an "autopsy" to understand why things went wrong and how you can prevent it next time. We walk you through the process using easy-to-understand medical analogies. We explain how we personally go through each part of the problematic event chronologically, enabling us to pinpoint issues and triggers - filling in those "blind spots" in our self-awareness. The key is starting with the facts of what happened before jumping to "why." Once you map out the sequence of events, you can have a thoughtful discussion to gain insights and develop strategies for the future.
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Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse. I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. And I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose, to transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones, using intelligence mixed with a little fun.00:00:36
Welcome back to the fastest growing marriage podcast in America. Uh, really? All right, let's try it again. Welcome back to the fastest Growing marriage podcast in the 75034 zip code. I think that's a lot more reasonable.00:00:55
Yes. All right, well, today, we want to get morbid with you. Yes. The intelligent spouse knows that sometimes we need to talk about really morbidly strange ideas to get to a scintillating marriage. So first, I want to talk about a story.00:01:12
Heidi, do you remember the time, not too long ago, we planned one of our marriage retreats? Okay, which one? Well, first of all, I'll explain a marriage retreat. We take a time out to assess our marriage, and we go somewhere, usually a hotel for a weekend, and we talk about things we want to accomplish and where we've been, where we are, where we're going. So let's talk about what happened.00:01:42
This has been several months ago now. Okay? I had planned every event out at what time, so everything was really planned. It was organized. You had in your mind how this would play out as well.00:01:57
My plan was to pick you up after work, and everything would already be packed. We would drive down to this little town about an hour away, kind of out in the country, little idyllic little town. The kind of town that's canonized in just about every Hallmark movie. Little glittering lights and warm breezes just oozing with romance. We had planned to, after dinner, casually saunter over to the local theater to watch a rural sized rendition of Fiddler on the roof, one of my all time favorite musicals.00:02:35
And then we would enjoy the night breeze, catch some stargazing before heading back to the big city, where we had reservations at an upscale hotel where we'd spend the remainder of the night making hot, passionate, steamy love, cuddling and watching some HGTV. That's always part of the mix. Of course, not at the same time. Right. So this is what happened.00:03:03
That was the plan. So I ended up staying late because I had to manage a medical problem that I wasn't planning. Mm hmm. I told you to pick up some fast food. Big disappointment.00:03:17
So we could eat it on the way so we wouldn't be late for the opening curtain. We missed our romantic little dinner just to inhale fast food. And while we were driving frantically talking about things that were of a reactive nature. Right. It wasn't being intentional.00:03:38
It wasn't being forward looking or understanding because everything was rushed. Right? And Fiddler on the roof ran longer than I remember. It showed a lot of songs that we'd never realized were part of Fiddler on the roof. It got out pretty late, so we had no time to look at the stars.00:03:57
We had to get gas. We stopped to get gas so we wouldn't run out of gas on the way back to the hotel. We got to our hotel very late and were assigned the wrong room. So we had everything in the room, realized it was the wrong room, went back, had to get another room and we got in and it was very, very late. We were pretty frustrated by that point, too.00:04:21
I'd been sitting in the hall of the other hotel room for a long time, so we went straight to bed without snuggling, let alone anything like hot, passionate, steamy sex or even hgtv. I think the only steam I had was the sweat from lugging up our luggage and dealing with the front desk. The next morning, we planned a romantic excursion to the local arboretum, a place that seared into our memory banks of our love story. It's been the backdrop for many wonderfully romantic encounters over the years. Just try to tell me that mixing together fields of tulips, japanese cherry blossom trees, cascading waterfalls and bronzed statues of passionate lovers isn't romantic.00:05:16
What a perfectly planned idea for a marriage retreat weekend. What happened? Well, I woke up late because I was so tired, but I didn't. No. Heidi woke up early to get enough time to shower to dress, so I hastily threw on some clothes to avoid being late for the arboretum.00:05:35
We had to eat. So we ran down to the overpriced hotel restaurant for an overpriced breakfast before dashing off much later than we expected. The rain was forecasted, but I blew it off, even though I told you several times we needed to consider it. Right? So there was only a 50% chance of rain.00:05:57
Well, that 50% chance turned into a 100% chance of complete downpour, not sprinkles. We ended up having to buy some rain ponchos at the gift shop at the arboretum and we had the whole place almost to ourselves. It could have been a great time. We even sang in the rain. We got soaked to the bone.00:06:21
It was really fun and spontaneous, but it was also irritating. Little cutting remarks by both of us. We began to snowball, and I turned defensive. Heidi turned critical. We arrived back at our hotel scheduled to start the retreat portion of our weekend.00:06:42
But when we got back, we were really on edge, defensive with each other, and no sign that any idea of sex would ever be on the table. So the result was everything kind of exploded. Hurt feelings, unmet expectations. They manifested as barbs, jabs, and anger. Then a miracle happened.00:07:07
We were smart enough to take a break for a little while. Heidi took a nap, and we went on a drive. That gave us the clarity to remember the program, the system, the plan. We talked about what happened coldly, objectively, not the why. That comes later.00:07:27
This happened, and that happened just like you're a witness on the witness stand. And really, from both of our perspectives, it allowed us to see what happened from a new perspective. A different time, a different place, a different me looking at the same historical events outside of them actually happening. This is what we call an autopsy. And then do you know what happens?00:07:52
We made up and proceeded to bag our planned retreat and spent the next several hours playing poker.00:08:07
Okay. Every intelligent spouse out there knows that they have a story pretty similar to the ones we shared. This type of communication breakdown can be really painful. It can really fester and springboard into more serious problems down the road. That's why we want to talk about this in more detail today.00:08:27
Let's talk about autopsies, a critical piece in developing all four cornerstones to an intelligent, scintillating marriage. You're right, Scott. And there's a book by Doctor Mark Byrd called in tandem, recovering me. Recovering us. And it talks about the idea of conducting autopsies to help couples repair and recover, specifically from relapses that occur in any type of an addiction.00:08:58
He uses the analogy of setting off to explore the world on a bicycle built for two. Riding a bike of this type is really unique in that whatever actions or effort I or lack of it, or direction we're going, or even the pace that we're going that we each individually have, it impacts the other. It impacts our partner. So this model addresses both the experience of an addict and their partner. But we, because of Scott's profession as a physician, we see the value in conducting autopsies.00:09:33
Really, after any kind of difficulties that couples are experiencing, we hope that you'll take these same principles and apply it to that. It can be used for anything. So we're just adapting this from his model to a marriage model, which we really like. There's a few different ways to look at how we look at the what? In a legal way, we talked about, like, a witness on the witness stand or like an affidavit of chronology or a scientific way of observational, chronological data.00:10:06
It's events that you characterize by what happened and not the reasoning behind it. So picture in your mind a medical autopsy. I did a few of these in my residency. It was very fascinating. It's a detailed exam of a deceased person's body to determine.00:10:24
Try to determine the cause of death. And this process involves very deliberate, intentional steps. So there's a few parts to this, to this autopsy. There's the anatomical exam, microscopic exam. We look at external evidence and come up with conclusions, and we document everything.00:10:48
So with anatomical, we see. What can I observe with my eyes, I'm looking at the skin. I'm looking at the head, the toes. I'm seeing if there are any entry wounds or puncture wounds or bruising. And I'm looking internally, I'm looking at the heart, the lungs.00:11:04
Are there any damage to the heart, or is there any damage to lungs? Do I find a blood clot in the lungs? Do I find blood clots in other arteries? Microscopic exam looks at. Look at urine.00:11:17
We look at the blood. We look at things under a microscope to see what has happening, like toxicology. If there's something we can't see with our eyes, we can see it through a microscope. And then we look at other evidences, like what kind of clothes, jewelry, location, who else was there, what are the other conditions, medical conditions they had and so forth and conclusions. That's the why that comes later.00:11:47
Like we said, this requires medical experience and knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and pathology. And then putting that together, considering repetitive patterns that have happened in the past, potential causes and effects, what's known in the medical literature. And then that leads the medical examiner to conclude why the person died. And then documentation is to document all of this down, objectively found and why it happened. And that's an autopsy report.00:12:23
We've been able to take this same model and apply it, although a very simplified process, and through the help of doctor Bird's book, to conducting a similar type of autopsy between marital partners. That leaves a. A little bit or even a big part of us feeling dead through negative interactions that we have with each other. So we're looking at what happened in this experience to leave us feeling a little bit dead. I just died in your arms tonight.00:12:58
A good autopsy fosters learning and growth. That makes it a really valuable process. After a fight, a trigger response or relapse, behavior. We all have gaps in our self awareness. As we've talked about in other episodes, these are called blind spots.00:13:18
Each time we conduct an autopsy, we fill these gaps with new insights, making it easier to intervene and prevent more serious issues later by applying the lessons that we learn from a specific event to repair your relationship more broadly, an autopsy can address a lot of different gaps in blind spots, rather than just one at a time. An autopsy in this context refers to a really thorough and reflective examination of past behaviors, actions, and how this impacts their outcomes. We're being introspective through this process, which allows individuals to identify patterns and potential causes and recognize triggers that led to certain responses or relapses. Through this really detailed, looking back kind of analysis, we can gain deeper insight into understanding ourselves, our own motivations, and our reactions. So blind spots, is that kind of like delusions?00:14:28
It can be. I had somebody tell me recently that I was working with, how could I have missed these blind spots that I've had for decades? Yeah, for decades. How could I not see them for decades? And being able to do an autopsy and understand each other and what went wrong earlier on could have helped with this.00:14:48
So, first of all, the process begins with identifying whatever incident it is that warrants examination. And hopefully, you're not doing a 30 year autopsy. Hopefully, you're just using one specific situation that was really uncomfortable. This could be sometime before the onset of a conflict, a relapse into an old habit, or any kind of event that triggers a strong emotional response and that increased flooding. So we start with the what?00:15:20
Just the facts, ma'am. What happened? By dissecting the incident into individual chronological events, individuals can really pinpoint what went wrong. So, yeah, this is kind of like that anatomic part of that autopsy. Right?00:15:37
We're looking at what can we see? And I would be remiss if I didn't add in here this great groundbreaking book by Tasha Uric called insight. I highly recommend it. Again, she comes again, she starts with, look, you start with the what. If you start with the why first, it creates too many reactive responses.00:16:05
It's too sensitive, it's too offensive. So we start with the what first. That's very neutral. What happened once things have settled, then we move to the why. Anyway, go ahead.00:16:17
So then we start looking microscopically what happened that I'm totally aware of, if I'm honest with myself. Are there things that I did wrong? Are there things that I could have done better? Can I humbly and vulnerably admit to my partner my part in how this situation played out. Now that I've really looked at all the facts, how each of us feel during and after the event is really an important part as well.00:16:46
This step is crucial for being able to see the blind spots in our own and each other's awareness, because it allows us to see how our emotions and our behaviors impact not only ourselves, but our partner as well. I would say this microscopic part of the autopsy is where we could insert the I feel statements. Right? Right. Like, I felt unheard when you responded that way.00:17:17
It's not saying it's your fault. No, we can't. It's saying, this is just what happened. I felt this way. This is how I felt.00:17:25
And there is no judgment when you put the issue at your medical office before prioritizing our date, even though I understand that happens a lot in your career. I felt sad, I felt disappointed. I felt ignored. I don't know, probably not ignored, but just looking at what our feelings were like and admitting our part is really necessary to being able to repair from this situation. So what is the conclusion part of this autopsy?00:17:58
By looking at the what, we can gain more insight into why it happened. Was I tired? Was I hungry? Oh, man. I'd gotten up at 05:00 that morning and I was going, going, going one thing after another that probably made me a lot more on edge than I normally would be.00:18:14
Was there something at work that I didn't understand? Because you didn't really explain it to me. We really need to look at each other's perspectives from how that happened. Right. So then it's going to be really important to document some of your findings.00:18:29
You might consider grabbing a notebook that you'll have just for writing down some of your findings here. You don't need to write the whole situation, but you can write some of your conclusions in there. And this is being really intentional. As you see, gaps in self awareness start to be filled. As you identify and document, the next step to develop strategies is to talk about some of these gaps and what you're going to do to fill the gaps.00:18:57
For example, as we've done this, we've made rules that before we go on a weekend marriage retreat, we really need to focus on getting a good night's sleep the night before we make sure that we're not hungry and we wait. Hunger can't do anything. Oh, yeah. Oh. We should never talk about hunger as a possibility for problems in our marriage.00:19:21
That is too simple. It very much can be, especially when we're talking about some serious things. So when we talk about serious things, we need to be well fed. Yeah, okay. Yep, we do.00:19:32
I hear you. And we also have made a rule for ourselves that we do something fun and emotionally connecting together before we start again. Jumping into those conversations, one other thing that we have really tried to do this year specifically is insert the word pivot into our conversations when we have expectations that are unmet, reminding each other, how do we pivot in this situation to resolve it, identifying and then writing down some of those things can say, okay, how could we have pivoted better in this situation? I like that word, pivot. It's my word of the year.00:20:12
This year. We're really working on that. We've documented these strategies then, so we don't make the same mistakes over and over and over again. This might also involve learning new coping mechanisms. So another example of how this has showed up for us is that we do meditation at the beginning of every marriage retreat and try to spend some time in nature.00:20:38
This really helps us calm down our minds and our hearts as we come together.00:20:44
Each autopsy that we do contributes to growing our very own toolkit of strategies and insights that helps us enhance our self awareness, increase our emotional intelligence, and gain more marriage iq. So, okay, let me just see if I got this straight here. We talked about autopsies. We talked about the what comes before the why, right? So we get all these data points of what happened before we ever moved to the why.00:21:18
Why did this happen? And it's going to be really, really hard. I think, for a lot of people, we want to jump to the why fast, because it's what we do. There's people that say, start with why. And I think sometimes you can start with why when you're asking a big question, philosophical question.00:21:40
But when we do that, a lot of times the why only comes from our own perspective, rather than looking at both people's perspectives. Right. Well, I'm saying the what comes when there is an event that happens. So this is like real world events where we start with the what and why. Like, I was hungry, I was tired, I was triggered.00:22:01
Triggered? I was irritated, I was flustered. I personally don't do well when I feel rushed. I don't. That is just my personality I was born with, I'm trying to work on.00:22:13
But when I feel rushed, things don't go well down the road. And so that's why we. Same for me. It's for both of us. We try to plan and make it work.00:22:25
So planning ahead, being intentional, knowing about these triggers, talking about them, writing them down, scheduling them in, and reviewing them every once in a while. So another incredible thing about learning how to conduct autopsies is that the insights we gain can really be generalized to other parts of our life. For example, understanding the root cause of a conflict in marriage can provide valuable lessons for managing conflicts in parent child relationships or in a professional setting. So this broader application of lessons that we learn ensures that each autopsy not only addresses a specific issue, but also strengthens our overall emotional and relational resilience. And engaging in this reflective practice, we can build a deeper and broader understanding of ourselves that goes back to identity.00:23:26
This ongoing process of self discovery and improvement makes it easier to anticipate and prevent potential problems before they escalate. And from the long view, the cumulative effect of these autopsies is we're able to incapable of navigating relationship challenges with greater ease and effectiveness. You know, we've heard that we have a few younger couples, some who are seriously considering marriage, who aren't engaged yet, or who aren't married yet, and some early in marriage. And I think this is a practice that could particularly help them right from the very beginning, get off to a good start so they're not looking backward decades later saying, how was I so blind? Yeah, this is why we talk about identity, right?00:24:14
That's one of the four cornerstones. Who am I? What makes me tick, what makes me really ticked off. That's a good point. And learning what those are and planning on them, because every intelligent spouse will know that the goal is not to get rid of conflict in a marriage.00:24:32
It is not. It's learning how to address conflict in a growth pattern, in a growth mindset. Right. And John Gottman's research goes right along with what you're saying. He says that most couples are never able to resolve some of the big issues that they have between them.00:24:53
These might include issues around parenting, around your personality traits, bug me around addictions, any kind of thing like that. But it's actually learning to manage those issues rather than becoming flooded, becoming contentious about them, reactive, slinging words, slinging hurtful phrases, being emotionally cut off from each other. So learning how to manage them, even though we know that they may never be resolved, is very important. Yeah, I think that's good to know. So how can we take all of this from today and look at it personally like, because we're always coming back to us, the scintillating marriage, the intelligent spouse knows it starts with themselves, right?00:25:49
It always does. So let's look at this personally. Take a look at your last relapse into whatever bad habit you have personally. Mm hmm. Sometimes it can be an addiction, sometimes a compulsion.00:26:04
But we all have them spending money inappropriately. Spending money inappropriately or yelling at our spouse. Right. So let's look at this bad habit that we're trying to overcome, and let's start creating a mental timeline of events. Don't assign blame to yourself.00:26:26
Don't say I'm stupid or I just. Just so dumb. Maybe say, I'm learning and I want to learn how to do it differently. Well. And say, this is what happened.00:26:40
This happened at this time, and this happened at this time, and then this happened at this time. You are your own witness on your own stand in the courtroom, and you're not assigning blame to yourself. You're not assigning blame to other people. You're just trying to say the what, what happened before you get to the why. You can get to the why pretty quickly and pretty easily, much more efficiently when you get to the what first, and not until you're finished uncovering everything about the what happened.00:27:19
Right. And for an intelligent spouse, we're also able to do this with our partner if they are willing. And that includes taking a look at our last blow up. Or maybe it didn't even end in a blow up, but it was simmering uneasiness or being upset with each other, and we're not talking about it, and we can just feel a big space between us. Right.00:27:42
And that's when we also create that mental timeline of events through a discussion with each other without assigning blame, without trying to solve the problem, without even addressing the why, at least not in the beginning. Yeah, let's hold off on the why. Let's master the what, and then eventually, we'll get to the why. Even if your spouse doesn't want to do this with you, you're like, okay, I love to do this. My spouse isn't going to do it.00:28:11
You can still do this. You can still do it in a relationship, even if you're the only one doing it at the time, and you can gain insight from that. But while the spouse in some circumstances might not be willing to do this, I think by using curiosity, we're able to gather information for the autopsy. Well, now, curiosity is a huge subject. It is.00:28:36
But to ask some questions. Yes. If we cannot figure out what's going on in their head, what led to this? Being able to speak from a very calm perspective instead of an overreactive perspective, to gather information about the what. What was it?00:28:53
That happened at your office that held you up for an hour beyond when we were expecting to leave. You don't have to give me any details, but is it that you were calling patients back, what you could have done in the car? Or was it I had a patient that I really needed to address a serious issue with? Just a simple question like that might give me more insight. We might want to avoid what happened at the office that you didn't come home and I am devastated and hurt.00:29:26
It could be more like, I understand that we're both feeling really frustrated right now that we're not getting to go to the nice, romantic restaurant that we were wanting to and spending the time we wanted to in this little town. Can you just help me understand what happened at the office? Generally speaking, then we really want to bring this whole issue back to how this relates to our four foundational principles. So, Scott, do you want to take that? So, as we said earlier, identity.00:29:56
Really get to know who you are. As I said, what makes you tick, what takes you off, what are your values? Become more aware of your blind spots. Insight, how to care better for ourselves so we can show up better in our relationships. Awareness of our own self, our own blind spots, and how our actions and words affect our partner.00:30:20
Intentionality. We need to sit down together. We consciously, deliberately analyze, intentionally willing to make small changes and intimacy. Practicing and repairing after the injury increases intimacy. Yes, we've heard from some of you that you really like homework assignments, things to work on through the week.00:30:42
So we just want to give you an opportunity this week to practice every day. Having just a little mini autopsy at the end of the day, there are just three simple questions that you might ask each other. The first one is, what went well for us today. The second question is, what problems came up and how did we manage them? And the third one is, what is one thing that we can do differently from what we've learned today?00:31:13
Try that for the next seven days and let us know if it makes a difference in you becoming an intelligent spouse or having an intelligent marriage as spouses. So next week's question. This hormone creates two different reactions in men and women, which can cause a lot of confusion. Why do we only discuss its effects through a man's perspective? Curious.00:31:38
Join us next time. Let's find out. Join us next time as we explore this together.00:31:50
And remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves. Thank you so much all for tuning into marriage IQ. We hope today's episode has sparked some thoughts and brought you some valuable insights. Remember, the conversation doesn't end here. Stay curious, keep exploring, and we'll catch you next time on another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
