Emotional Prediction Is Vital for Love to Last

         
I have often wondered how people who once loved each other, lived together, even created a child or built a company together can wind up in a state of mutual loathing. More than 40 percent of today’s marriages end in divorce, many of them bitter. If partners are blind to each other’s emotions, their loving moments can morph into hidden hostility. People often hold their explosive feelings inside like undetonated grenades. Then one day, he says one more thing that confirms, “He’s a dictator.” Or she does something that absolutely proves, “She’s a twit!” That is the tipping point. 

                When the couple recognizes that they receive more pain from the relationship than pleasure, one of them pulls the pin. The injuries are intense. The couple splits. Psychiatrists and psychologists have acknowledged the “pleasure-pain principle” since 300 b.c., when the Greek philosopher Epicurus put pen to papyrus. Sigmund Freud, often credited with creating the concept, fleshed it out in his tomes.

More recently, megamotivator Tony Robbins (of walking barefoot on hot coals fame) danced around the stage shouting about his theory that people run toward that which is pleasurable and race away from that which is not. Whatever packaging of the concept one prefers, the time- honored truth is this: The pleasure-pain principle affects all our relationships. The tiniest ways you touch someone’s life add up.

                       If you inadvertently give someone enough negative feelings, she soon wants you out of her life. On the other hand, if each time she comes in contact with you, she leaves feeling better about herself, she will reward you with respect and affection. We are not talking about giving compliments here. That’s Dale Carnegie stuff from seventy years ago. Nowadays, overt compliments are clunky and obvious. To win people’s respect and affection, you must dig deeper into their psyche and locate the site, size, and shape of their fragile self-esteem. Once accomplished, you can accurately predict their emotions, respond with sensitivity, and make them feel connected to you.