In this enlightening episode, join Angie Austin as she delves deep into the nuances of marriage with Dr. Donald Welch, the author of ‘The Response of Marriage’. Discover how reactivity can be a major obstacle in relationships and learn about the methods to transform impulsive reactions into thoughtful responses. Dr. Welch shares his insights on understanding personal and partner’s temperaments, providing practical tools to enhance communication and intimacy.
welcome to the good news with angie austin now with the good news here’s angie
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. Well, it’s not often that I have one of my PR friends write to me and say, this is one of the best books I’ve ever read on marriages. And I’ve read a lot, he said. So my friend Don said, you’ve got to talk to Dr. Donald Welch. He wrote The Response of Marriage, Finding the Path Out of Reactivity. So welcome to the program, Dr. Donald Welch.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, Angie, thank you for having me on your program. I really appreciate it. It’s great to meet you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Nice to meet you as well. I did get your voicemail the first time I reached out to you, and it’s very caring. I thought, oh, he definitely counsels a lot of people because it was very much like, hey, You’re important to me. And if you’re trying to reach me, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. So make sure you leave me a message. So that’s your work as well. Besides being an author, you’re also working with couples personally?
SPEAKER 03 :
On a daily basis, yes. You’re at the Center for Enriching Relationships in San Diego, California. Yes, I do on a regular basis.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, would you mind just kind of giving us a synopsis? If someone says, what is the response of marriage about marriage?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, the book could be considered an owner’s manual with complete instructions for how to operate a marriage at peak performance, you know, according to God’s original design. Wow. And I’ve discovered, I really have discovered, I believe, after all these years and research that supports this, that the number one reason that trouble starts and perhaps continues in the marriage is the inclination to that we all have to be reactive to each other rather than responsive during our daily interactions. So we have these involuntary reactions.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m just laughing because I already told you I’ve got three teenagers and a husband who has a hot Italian temper and five pets that he told me I could not have when we first got married. So I went about 17 years without any dogs and just now all of a sudden have three and the two cats. So as you can imagine, it’s quite a hotbed of reactivity at our house. So that’s why I’m laughing. Now, when you say embracing our natural temperament, I giggle because I do have a hot temper, but mine has a very, like you have to try to light it many, many times. Like it’s the firecracker, you can’t get lit. And so you might try for five minutes, but then when it’s lit, like you better back up, right? And so with my husband, his can be lit with a spark. Like it doesn’t, we know exactly how quickly it can be lit. And I always tell the kids, because as he’s getting heated with them, my natural inclination is to somewhat calm him down and And keep and calm them down because, you know, he’ll go up a notch. Then one of the kids will go up a notch. Then he’ll go up a notch. Then they’ll go up a notch. I’m like, you guys, you will never reach the top notch. It will always be dad. So why not just quit notching up? Just like be quiet for a minute. And once he gets his point across to you and you are understanding him or pretending at least that you’re understanding him. acting like you’re understanding him, then he will come down, but he will not come down if you keep ratcheting up. So why is it so important to understand and embrace our natural temperament and maybe theirs as well? And, and how do we handle that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yes, as well with that, Angie, I think while you do have, that’s quite a wonderful family you have and a lot of energy. It sounds like my wife and I have a little dog that I run with on a daily basis. And, um, She doesn’t sound as reactive as some of what you’re talking about. Maybe your dogs and cats or cat. You had one. We have one cat. Three dogs, two cats. Yeah. Two cats. Excuse me. I got that wrong. Yes. Well, what I just did there was validate. And I think that’s what you were doing with your children and your husband offering some space to validate. Because as we embrace our natural temperament, we are really then in a better position to also accept and respect. Perhaps embrace our spouse’s temperament rather than try to change them into something they aren’t. If we learn more about our temperament, we can focus on enhancing our strengths and minimizing our weaknesses.
SPEAKER 05 :
So you say embrace it, accept it instead of trying to turn them into something they’re not because I can’t. And so you’re already giving me a better idea of how to handle a situation rather than turn to him and try to get him to calm down because he’s not going to until they listen because he’s running the show. It’s very authoritarian with the kids. So I need to turn to them and say, you need to calm down and let dad get his point across. And then you can talk to him about your point of view if you’d like.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, because unfortunately, without intervention, we tend to have reactive messages. All of us do. And it sounds like you’re describing your husband and you and your interaction. But when I mean this with this reactive messages, this means they originate from the feeling part of the brain and are largely involuntary, uncontrolled, and oftentimes relationship impeding. And we’re wanting in the book, we want to ensure our messages to each other are more responsive. This means that they originate from the thinking part of the brain, which are voluntary, deliberate, and relationship enhancing. If you can kind of think of it in terms of – I always think of it in terms of – it sounds like we’re both dog lovers and cat lovers. We don’t have a cat, but we do love our dog. And that they are – our dog, as much as we want to think it has a lot of voluntary, deliberate, relationship-enhancing brains, portions. It does not. It does have a lot of feeling part of the brain. So they are very reactive. That’s why we give them treats when they do their little tricks. My wife loves to share with others the tricks that our dog has learned rolling over, jumping over, sitting, you know, the various things, crawling even different things. But that’s dealing more with the the reactive part of the brain. And we want to move our brain as humans to we can move to more of a responsive ring that’s more voluntary and deliberate in relationship enhancing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, in working with people every day, what are some of the common issues that you help people tackle in their relationships?
SPEAKER 03 :
One is that I try to help them to be aware, become more aware. You can do that in a number of ways through just being aware of your own breathing, aware of of how you are feeling about something, like I’m feeling a little bit anxious or I’m feeling happy. And awareness of our temperament and reactivity provides the opportunity for us to choose responsiveness. That’s the theme of the book.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, in term… Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, well, I was just… That’s okay. I was just thinking that really the healthiest of thriving marriages have an abundance of what we call voice and choice for both the husband and wife. where if my wife were to call me, she does this better than I do. If I called her on the phone or if she called me, or I called her, let me just get that. I call her and I say, oh, do you have a moment to talk? And she thinks a moment, you know, I really don’t. I can in about 10 minutes. And then I say, oh, I can in 10 minutes. I’m going to be in a session. And then she said, how about an hour? And then we’re discussing this. And the healthiest of marriages provide an abundance of voice and choice, both for the husband and wife. that creates that responsiveness behavior kind of a kind of a nerdy illustration but uh my students at the university they they laugh at me when i tell that story because they go prof hey why why do you discuss that for maybe almost a minute and you could have gotten your answer to the question you have for your life and i said well i think you’re missing it the point is that really the more we can invest in voice and choice for both the husband and wife, the more healthy the relationship, because it allows us to share our feelings more, to have more what we call reciprocity, the ability to share back and forth our thoughts and feelings.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, when you think about expectations, we expect so much in our relationships, like for them to know that we, you know, you just gave an example, but we want them to know more how we’re feeling, that we’re irritated. Is everything okay? Yes, everything’s fine. We just expect they should know everything. And I think I see so many of my friends when I lived in Los Angeles, some of my girlfriends that I knew 20, 30 years ago are still single. And I feel like they have these expectations of this night and shining armor and, you know, just how perfect everything is supposed to be. And they’re not they have all these unmet expectations. And you refer to those unmet expectations and we all have them as relationship killers. So explain that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, that’s a really good question. one of the first things I do as a therapist is invite my patients to think of expectations within the home, domestic expectations. I’ve had people that have been married 40, 50, even 60 years. And I’ll ask that question. We’ll go, some will go, Oh, I never thought about talking with them. And I had one couple, believe it or not, Angie, I had one couple, they had been married 40 years, about 41 years. And I asked that question and they got into a discussion about it. And, um, She said, oh, he’s always taking out the trash. And I love taking out the trash, but I’ve never been able to because we never discussed it. Now, he turned. This is a true story. He turned to her and said, you’ve got to be kidding. I hate taking out trash. Why didn’t we discuss this before? Now, that’s just one example of probably hundreds with a couple deciding on how to And again, it’s increasing the voice and choice of the husband and wife where they choose to actually be able to decide on things, sometimes on a daily basis, because things change as we both age and seasons of life. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
You talk about reactivity. I mean, it’s the response of marriage, finding the path out of reactivity. How do we get a better understanding of our own reactivity? Because I definitely see myself overreact after things have gone on for about 10 minutes where I just lose my marbles. And we’re kind of a yelling family, which I’m not proud of. The kids, my husband, my mom, who would live with us forever. you know 20 years she’s living somewhere else now where um we’re we’re taking a little break from mom because i mean mom oh wow she yelled a lot at the kids and it’s like oh my goodness can the kids get a break from the yelling and of course now we’ve taught them to do it so i see we’re a very reactive family so how do we get better at recognizing maybe our own reactivity and toning that back and maybe responding better to the other’s reactivity
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, yes. I think you’re getting at the very heart of the book, and that is that, if I may just respond to your question initially with this preface, that unmanaged reactivity erodes intimacy and trust. So it elongates conflict. Yes. Now, I introduced the readers, Angie, to this in the book, in the Welch responsive cycle, which has two routes, the northern and the southern. The northern route ends up with repair and The southern route ends up with despair. So that’s kind of a nerdy statement. Say it again. Well, yeah, the northern route that I have a diagram in the book and I have definition about it. It’s the centerpiece of the book that the northern route ends with repair. So you’re able to repair misunderstanding, which I think you’re asking in your question. The southern route, however, ends with despair. That’s when the reactivity is never worked on. or trying to be understood, or trying to hear each other, or to validate each other, or to be very curious with why the person feels so strongly about something. So what happens is without, in other words, unmanaged reactivity, it causes the interaction to spiral out of control as it picks up speed. In the therapy work, we always say, if you have anxiety and avoid it, it’s going to increase. So we want to, in the book, we talk about ways to embrace anxiety and embrace reactivity so that it doesn’t spiral, it doesn’t pick up speed and spiral out of control. So when we learn to become aware of reactivity as soon as it starts, this is more of the question I think you’re asking, if we can learn to become, let me repeat that if I may, kind of this idea of becoming aware of reactivity as soon as it starts, we can take steps to manage it and shift from the southern route of to the northern route. Again, the southern route, when we think of that southern route, it ends with despair, but the northern route ends with repair.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, stay right there. Don’t go anywhere, Dr. Welch. I’m going to take a break and we’ll come back and we’ll find out how we learn to take the proper route. Okay, we’ll be right back with the good news.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Aspen Park is listening to KLTT, the mighty 670.
SPEAKER 05 :
If you’re just joining us, this is Angie Austin with the Good News, and we are talking to Dr. Donald Welch, and he is the author of The Response of Marriage, Finding the Path Out of Reactivity. So kind of recap the northern and southern route of our reactivity and how we choose or learn to take the proper route, doctor.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Well, the northern route ends with repair. That’s where you have a reciprocity, you’re understanding each other, you’re being curious with each other. The southern route, however, ends with the despair. So how can we create an awareness of our reactive tendencies then? I include several methods in the book to identify the reactivity and understand its origin. One method is to take the Welch Responsive Temperament Assessment, it’s called the WRTA, which I describe in detail in the book. Don’t let it scare you. It has 204 questions. The WRTA provides each person in the couple with valuable information about their temperament and how they express their temperament in either responsive or reactive ways. And so what I do is I, armed with this information, there’s lots of tools and methods in the book and also a separate handbook that comes with the WRTA designed to help couples manage their reactivity and improve their their relationships and then may i add one other thing angie with that in chapter 10 i also include a general reactivity questionnaire that the couple can use to walk back through the chapters and identify the presence of reactivity
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. I’m going to jump to listening because you talk a lot about listening and obviously to be, you know, better at our reactions to our spouse, our significant other, we have to listen to them. And you say good listening skills is like giving your companion air, like it’s completely necessary.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Yes. You know, when we’re not listening to Actually, we almost, our esophagus gets cut off because our high chest tightens a bit. When we’re listened to, we relax. But I use the AIR, A-I-R, as an acronym to help people remember the essential elements of active listening. These are affirm, here’s the three. Affirm, this is the A-I-R. Affirm, inquire, and reflect or repeat. So when one intentionally does all three of these actions, While they are listening to another, it’s like giving oxygen to the one who’s been underwater without air for a bit of time. It brings refreshment and relief. really to the person who’s listening to in this way.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, so, Doctor, I say to you, you know, I need more help. I’m super busy with the kids. You know, I’m just going all different directions. I need help with, you know, driving to somebody’s practices or this, that, and the other. And then how do you do the AIR back to me?
SPEAKER 03 :
What I do is I say, oh, so it sounds like you need help with this, and I’d be happy to do that. How may I better even help you? So I’m using invitational back to you. And validation is what I just did because validation is just saying back to the other person. If I can get a couple just to say back to the other person what they heard them say, it actually moves into responsivity out and moves out of reactivity because I give myself a little bit of space to calm down, If I’m frustrated with that because I don’t have time to do that event for you. So it’s a way to calm yourself.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. All right. That makes sense. A-I-R. Multitasking. I like to think I’m really good at it. My husband can only do one thing at a time. Like if he’s driving, I have to remind him sometimes of our own turnoff off the highway because he cannot – I mean, if he’s on the phone, I’m like, bro, you’ve got to hang up the phone like you cannot drive and talk on the phone. He just is really good at doing one thing at a time, but exceptionally good at it. I mean, boy, is he good at everything he does. He is excellent. But I like to think I’m good at multitasking. But you don’t really like the idea of multitasking. What do you say about it? Is it really not that possible?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the brain research shows this, but you’ve described something that I experienced early on in my wife and my marriage that I walked in the door. She was at the kitchen sink. This truly happened. She had one of the, you know, the bigger old phones kind of tucked up under her chin.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re listening, talking. She was washing some things in the, in the sink. She actually then had our little dog. The dog was right next to her back then. It was another dog, but years ago, decades ago. And she was petting the dog with her foot. And I stopped in my tracks. And I said, there is no way I can do what she just did. She’s listening, talking, washing dishes, and actually scratching our dog with her foot. And it was amazing. There’s a difference between a man’s brain and a woman’s brain. There’s this hormonal washing. What happens early on in about four weeks and six weeks, that the male’s brain with the heavy testosterone does not go between the two hemispheres as well. A female. And so women do this multitasking much better than men. So I address the idea of multitasking in the book when I discuss listening skills. And I make the case that multitasking, as most of us understand that term, is really a myth. But while we can certainly work on tasks simultaneously, our brain is actually not wired to do it well. So it’s not as though I’m against it. Women do this better than men. If we’re watching a movie, my wife is folding something or doing something, I cannot do both at the same time. So you’re absolutely in the norm, Angie, with your husband in the sense that he can do that one task. That’s why we as men, we’re working on something and the wife maybe says, hey, I’d like to share a story with you. Well, I cannot put the screw in at the same time you’re talking to me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, that’s funny. Also, speaking of men and how they think and what they do and the way their brains work, you talk about how most men have no clue, no idea, no real logic in terms of they don’t know what they feel. So is that true that they really don’t know what they feel like? I think my husband, when he first started this company 10 years ago, I think he was depressed because he was very angry. And I read that anger sometimes is a sign of depression in men because he was so, I mean, it was so stressful because he didn’t make an income for like three years. And so I juggled all of that while he started his company and it’s all worked out really well. So he’s not as angry as he was, but I think it was depression, but he had no clue. And when I tried to explain it to him, he’s like, well, I don’t know, maybe I am. So if they have no clue what they really feel, how does that impact the marriage? And is that true? They really, a lot of times don’t really understand how they feel.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, it’s true. In many cases, the only feeling men feel comfortable with is anger. That’s why all the movies are angry. You know, the guy comes and steals your family, and the whole movie is finding that guy and getting the family back. And men are just loving the movie, and the women walk out, and they’re ready to go to a Hallmark movie. But men are typically not taught to understand their feelings or how to express them in healthy ways. I do teach that in the book. And so that’s why I think it would be helpful. If you think about it this way, Angie, since women are like kind of realtors, they generally speak in the language of feelings while men speak in the language of facts.
SPEAKER 05 :
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s so true. All right. And you talk about I think this is a funny term, but because everybody loves the rest stop when they’re traveling. You know, there’s always like the candy machine and a drinking fountain and there’s bathrooms and you can walk the dog a little right. And there might be a shady spot to have a sandwich. And so why do you say that there’s a marital rest stop and that it’s an important thing in a relationship to have a marital rest stop?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Yes. Chapter seven is about finding rest stops along the way. Well, because really the subtitle of the book is Finding the Path Out of Reactivity. The theme and title of each chapter of the book relates to a path, a road or travel. And because you said it so well, it was great. I could just follow your illustration so well. I was like I was there, Angie. But life is busy and often chaotic. And if a couple is not purposeful about stopping at rest stops along this journey, they will burn out and completely miss each other. And the rest stops I talk about in the book have to do with slowing things down. I discuss ways to enjoy the moment, tune into our senses, laugh with each other, ensure that family is not overtaking marriage, stop surrendering to the tyranny of the urgent, and build, say, margins into our schedules.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I’ve lately been doing these. It’s a family outing, but it’s kind of, you know, for my husband and I as well, because we don’t really go out to dinner much alone. And we don’t really go out to dinner much unless grandma and grandpa are here. Then we have like the big dinners, you know, with grandma and grandpa. And so there’s seven of us and we do the big dinner. So I’ve started doing like a movie night, which my husband’s not. We hadn’t gone to a movie really since we got married. He doesn’t really go to movies. But I found one that I think that he’ll kind of like. And then they have the new Lazy Boys now where you can lean back. And he’s 6’6″. He blocks the whole row in front of him. Oh, my goodness, yes. we get our own two seats and then we put the kids and maybe some of their friends, like I might buy nine tickets and then I’ll stick them and their friends up ahead of us, but then we’re kind of back by ourselves. And then we take them, we all go to dinner. And so that’s been really fun because that’s something we normally don’t do. And it’s a little expensive. It’s not something I would normally like. I use air quotes, waste money on, because I don’t like to waste money, but it’s not really wasting money at all. Like, We’re fine. You know, it doesn’t matter if we spend a couple hundred dollars on a night out for the family. And we’ve really been enjoying it. We do it a few times a month. And then, you know, like there’s all kinds of light festivals and cool things going on, especially this time of year. So I’ve been planning some of those as well. And, oh, the aquarium. The whole family did the aquarium together. And we had such a blast. Oh, boy. I feel like those are kind of rest stops, even though our kids are all still home in high school. That won’t go on that much longer. So I’m kind of trying to capitalize on when the whole family’s together, which also I think is somewhat of a marital rest stop. Maybe not quite the way you advise it, but it’s been good for us. Why are these so important?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you’re doing them because a healthy couple engages in intentional behavior. What I mean by that is that if we are not intentional, which you are, sounds like in many different ways, if we’re not intentional about planning and taking action to improve our marriages, they will erode and degrade over time. It’s called – we’ve all heard of the law of entropy. Without intervention, things always move from order to disorder. So a couple must be intentional about investing in their marriage if they’re going to have any chance of experiencing a thriving and fulfilling one. And I congratulate you on your ingenious, creative ways to do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, and I think, you know, it was different, obviously, when he was starting his business out. We would do things that weren’t, you know, that weren’t very expensive. Even Christmas was like a secondhand store. We joke around about shopping with a purpose. So the money would go back maybe to ARC where they help people who are differently abled. But we would buy all of our presents there. For two Christmases, I think we did that. And so we obviously didn’t do the dinner and the movie and the ice skating and all the, you know, events. Because it’s a good… I’d say $100 just for a family to go to the movie, at least a bigger family, bigger-ish like ours. So now we can, I guess, spend a little more on some of these fun outings. But I know for a fact that they don’t always take a lot of money. All right, we have about a minute left, Doc. What do you want to leave us with and take away from our session with you? I’m calling this our session on the response of marriage.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, well, I think we’ve talked a lot about various things. I would like to add with what you were just saying about your own family. I think most of us either intuitively know or have learned in our vocation that setting goals, honestly evaluating progress and meeting goals, and then putting events and actions on calendars and to-do lists and strategizing actions to solve problems. all increase the chances for what we intend to become reality. And I think you and your husband, boy, he is tall, six foot six. Yes, he would be daunting just to meet, wouldn’t he? But the idea is you are intentional, and that’s what we talk a lot about in the book.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I sure appreciate you joining us. Give us a website, Doctor, where we can find more on you and the response of marriage.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, yes, that’s great. It’s WelchFamilyTherapyInstitute.com. So Welch Family, it’s WelchFamilyInstitute.com. Excellent. That’s where you can find information.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you so much. It was a real pleasure having you on the show, Doctor. Okay. Thank you so much, Angie.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
