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Recorded at	December 01, 2017
Event	TEDxBrisbane
Duration (min:sec)	10:59
Video Type	TEDx Talk
Words per minute	154.1 slow
Readability (FK)	57.25 easy
Speaker	George Blair-West


1	00:15	Almost 50 years ago,
2	00:17	psychiatrists Richard Rahe and Thomas Holmes developed an inventory
3	00:22	of the most distressing human experiences that we could have.
4	00:28	Number one on the list? Death of a spouse.
5	00:32	Number two, divorce. Three, marital separation.
6	00:35	Now, generally, but not always,
7	00:38	for those three to occur, we need what comes in number seven on the list,
8	00:42	which is marriage.
9	00:44	(Laughter)
10	00:46	Fourth on the list is imprisonment in an institution.
11	00:51	Now, some say number seven has been counted twice.
12	00:54	(Laughter)
13	00:58	I don't believe that.
14	01:00	When the life stress inventory was built,
15	01:04	back then, a long-term relationship pretty much equated to a marriage.
16	01:10	Not so now.
17	01:11	So for the purposes of this talk, I'm going to be including
18	01:16	de facto relationships, common-law marriages
19	01:18	and same-sex marriages,
20	01:21	or same-sex relationships soon hopefully to become marriages.
21	01:26	And I can say from my work with same-sex couples,
22	01:28	the principles I'm about to talk about are no different.
23	01:32	They're the same across all relationships.
24	01:35	So in a modern society,
25	01:38	we know that prevention is better than cure.
26	01:42	We vaccinate against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles.
27	01:47	We have awareness campaigns for melanoma, stroke, diabetes --
28	01:51	all important campaigns.
29	01:54	But none of those conditions come close
30	01:58	to affecting 45 percent of us.
31	02:02	Forty-five percent: that's our current divorce rate.
32	02:06	Why no prevention campaign for divorce?
33	02:11	Well, I think it's because our policymakers don't believe
34	02:17	that things like attraction and the way relationships are built
35	02:22	is changeable or educable.
36	02:25	Why?
37	02:27	Well, our policymakers currently are Generation X.
38	02:31	They're in their 30s to 50s.
39	02:34	And when I'm talking to these guys about these issues,
40	02:38	I see their eyes glaze over,
41	02:40	and I can see them thinking,
42	02:42	"Doesn't this crazy psychiatrist get it?
43	02:45	You can't control the way in which people attract other people
44	02:49	and build relationships."
45	02:52	Not so, our dear millennials.
46	02:55	This is the most information-connected, analytical and skeptical generation,
47	03:01	making the most informed decisions of any generation before them.
48	03:06	And when I talk to millennials, I get a very different reaction.
49	03:10	They actually want to hear about this.
50	03:12	They want to know about how do we have relationships that last?
51	03:18	So for those of you who want to embrace the post- "romantic destiny" era with me,
52	03:23	let me talk about my three life hacks for preventing divorce.
53	03:28	Now, we can intervene to prevent divorce at two points:
54	03:32	later, once the cracks begin to appear in an established relationship;
55	03:37	or earlier, before we commit, before we have children.
56	03:42	And that's where I'm going to take us now.
57	03:46	So my first life hack:
58	03:48	millennials spend seven-plus hours on their devices a day.
59	03:54	That's American data.
60	03:56	And some say, probably not unreasonably,
61	03:58	this has probably affected their face-to-face relationships.
62	04:03	Indeed, and add to that the hookup culture,
63	04:06	ergo apps like Tinder,
64	04:08	and it's no great surprise that the 20-somethings that I work with
65	04:12	will often talk to me about how it is often easier for them
66	04:16	to have sex with somebody that they've met
67	04:18	than have a meaningful conversation.
68	04:21	Now, some say this is a bad thing.
69	04:24	I say this is a really good thing.
70	04:28	It's a particularly good thing
71	04:31	to be having sex outside of the institution of marriage.
72	04:35	Now, before you go out and get all moral on me,
73	04:38	remember that Generation X, in the American Public Report,
74	04:42	they found that 91 percent of women
75	04:45	had had premarital sex by the age of 30.
76	04:48	Ninety-one percent.
77	04:51	It's a particularly good thing that these relationships are happening later.
78	04:56	See, boomers in the '60s --
79	04:59	they were getting married at an average age for women of 20
80	05:03	and 23 for men.
81	05:05	2015 in Australia?
82	05:07	That is now 30 for women and 32 for men.
83	05:13	That's a good thing, because the older you are when you get married,
84	05:19	the lower your divorce rate.
85	05:21	Why?
86	05:22	Why is it helpful to get married later?
87	05:24	Three reasons.
88	05:25	Firstly, getting married later allows the other two preventers of divorce
89	05:30	to come into play.
90	05:31	They are tertiary education
91	05:34	and a higher income, which tends to go with tertiary education.
92	05:38	So these three factors all kind of get mixed up together.
93	05:41	Number two,
94	05:42	neuroplasticity research tell us
95	05:44	that the human brain is still growing until at least the age of 25.
96	05:51	So that means how you're thinking and what you're thinking
97	05:54	is still changing up until 25.
98	05:57	And thirdly, and most importantly to my mind, is personality.
99	06:00	Your personality at the age of 20
100	06:03	does not correlate with your personality at the age of 50.
101	06:07	But your personality at the age of 30
102	06:09	does correlate with your personality at the age of 50.
103	06:13	So when I ask somebody who got married young why they broke up,
104	06:16	and they say, "We grew apart,"
105	06:18	they're being surprisingly accurate,
106	06:20	because the 20s is a decade of rapid change and maturation.
107	06:25	So the first thing you want to get before you get married is older.
108	06:30	(Laughter)
109	06:34	Number two,
110	06:35	John Gottman, psychologist and relationship researcher,
111	06:40	can tell us many factors that correlate with a happy, successful marriage.
112	06:46	But the one that I want to talk about
113	06:48	is a big one:
114	06:50	81 percent of marriages implode, self-destruct, if this problem is present.
115	06:56	And the second reason why I want to talk about it here
116	06:59	is because it's something you can evaluate while you're dating.
117	07:03	Gottman found that the relationships that were the most stable and happy
118	07:08	over the longer term
119	07:10	were relationships in which the couple shared power.
120	07:14	They were influenceable:
121	07:18	big decisions, like buying a house, overseas trips, buying a car,
122	07:23	having children.
123	07:24	But when Gottman drilled down on this data,
124	07:27	what he found was that women were generally pretty influenceable.
125	07:33	Guess where the problem lay?
126	07:35	(Laughter)
127	07:36	Yeah, there's only two options here, isn't there?
128	07:39	Yeah, we men were to blame.
129	07:42	The other thing that Gottman found
130	07:44	is that men who are influenceable
131	07:48	also tended to be "outstanding fathers."
132	07:53	So women: How influenceable is your man?
133	07:58	Men:
134	08:03	you're with her because you respect her.
135	08:07	Make sure that respect plays out in the decision-making process.
136	08:14	Number three.
137	08:19	I'm often intrigued by why couples come in to see me
138	08:23	after they've been married for 30 or 40 years.
139	08:26	This is a time when they're approaching the infirmities and illness of old age.
140	08:31	It's a time when they're particularly focused on caring for each other.
141	08:37	They'll forgive things that have bugged them for years.
142	08:40	They'll forgive all betrayals, even infidelities,
143	08:43	because they're focused on caring for each other.
144	08:46	So what pulls them apart?
145	08:47	The best word I have for this is reliability,
146	08:50	or the lack thereof.
147	08:52	Does your partner have your back?
148	08:54	It takes two forms.
149	08:55	Firstly, can you rely on your partner to do what they say they're going to do?
150	09:01	Do they follow through?
151	09:03	Secondly,
152	09:06	if, for example,
153	09:08	you're out and you're being verbally attacked by somebody,
154	09:10	or you're suffering from a really disabling illness,
155	09:16	does your partner step up and do what needs to be done
156	09:19	to leave you feeling cared for and protected?
157	09:23	And here's the rub:
158	09:25	if you're facing old age,
159	09:27	and your partner isn't doing that for you --
160	09:29	in fact, you're having to do that for them --
161	09:32	then in an already-fragile relationship,
162	09:35	it can look a bit like you might be better off out of it rather than in it.
163	09:41	So is your partner there for you when it really matters?
164	09:49	Not all the time, 80 percent of the time,
165	09:51	but particularly if it's important to you.
166	09:55	On your side, think carefully before you commit to do something for your partner.
167	10:01	It is much better to commit to as much as you can follow through
168	10:05	than to commit to more sound-good-in-the-moment
169	10:08	and then let them down.
170	10:14	And if it's really important to your partner, and you commit to it,
171	10:18	make sure you move hell and high water to follow through.
172	10:21	Now, these are things that I'm saying you can look for.
173	10:24	Don't worry, these are also things that can be built
174	10:27	in existing relationships.
175	10:32	I believe that the most important decision
176	10:37	that you can make
177	10:38	is who you choose as a life partner,
178	10:43	who you choose as the other parent of your children.
179	10:47	And of course, romance has to be there.
180	10:49	Romance is a grand and beautiful and quirky thing.
181	10:54	But we need to add to a romantic, loving heart
182	10:59	an informed, thoughtful mind,
183	11:03	as we make the most important decision of our life.
184	11:06	Thank you.
185	11:07	(Applause)

George Blair-West: 3 ways to build a happy marriage and avoid divorce