Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

Core teachings of Relationship Education

Smart Marriages 2
Teleclass Transcript
MP: Mark Peysha
CM: Cloe Madanes
Sarah
David

MP: All right, welcome to the teleclass, guys. Robbins and Madanes Training. Today
we have a very exciting well, Im personally excited about this one quite a bit because
it is a lot of new context that came as somewhat of a surprise to me. It is stuff that we
have just been working and I think it will be really, really actionable and useful for
everyone here in dealing with relationships. It is a totally different angle and totally
different way of looking at improving relationships that is just super practical so I am
very excited to go for on this.
Today basically, we will be working on one of the most important and most practical
ways of improving a marriage and that is one way that Cloes work is actually going
against the current marriage education in therapy and coaching because it is so darn
practical and it is super actionable. So basically, if you step back and look at
relationships in the life cycle, most marriages and long term relationships start with the
courtship period, with the couple checking each other out, and then there is a
commitment period where they are working on becoming exclusive and then there are
several phases of life to the point where they get to the period where in a life gets more
complicated. You have the addition of children, people working in their careers, there is
a household and kids educational needs and things like that that need to be managed.
You have questions on how to spend and allocate money, how to save money. You have
extended family and friends that you have to allocate time and resources to that and so
you get the picture. Life gets very complicated and simply people tend to run up against
certain limitations and just an organizational wall, a wall where one partner runs out of
energy or time or both partners run out or energy and time doing things in a way that was
ineffective.
When you have a lot of people to take care of, it becomes more complicated to meet
needs. The fundamentals of relationships is meeting each others needs so in this case,
the partners become frustrated or burnt out or resentful or they develop a conflict or both
of them feel lonely in the midst of all these business and all these stuff that they need to
do or they develop a symptom like a safe problem. Basically, when one or both partners
start to feel that their needs are being ignored over a period of time, that is when it starts

Page 1

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

to develop problems and this is the point where one partner feels so isolated or frustrated,
they have an affair. In many cases, not that one partner is consciously holding out on the
other or refusing to meet their needs, it is that there is just an operation or a key element
in the family that needs to be approved and people are running out of energy and time and
so as an advisory, your job is to help everyone get their needs met.
So this teleclass is going to be about understanding, isolating and solving some of these
organizational blockages and this is something that 99 percent of marriage educators and
coaches dont know how to do because they tend to look at relationship problems in a
certain framework that makes the relationship issue and put it in a box and rather than
look at some problems as being operational and based on the knitty-gritty of daily duties,
schedules and decisions.
Let us start at the beginning and imagine, we also want to give you a way of approaching
a couple or a relationship session from the beginning so you know basically how to start
this kind of conversation in a positive way that you can build on. We are also going to
give you some introductory steps on how to work with the couple from the time that you
sit down to the point where you start talking about somebodys operational issues or
figuring out how to solve the presenting problem.
So imagine that you are sitting down with the couple or you are in phone with them to do
a first session, so how do you start? Well, guess what? You dont want to start with the
presenting problem; you dont want to start with the source of the irritation and the source
of fight. You want to start with the larger view of the relationship which means starting
at the beginning. There are five basic questions you want to start at the beginning and
these are to give the couple an overview of the entire life of the relationship so the first
question is: How did the two of you meet? The second question is: How do you
know that you were in love?
CM: How did you know that you were in love?
MP: How did you know, how did you know that you were in love and you ask
CM: How and when and where did you know for the first time that you were in love?
MP: Exactly. You want them to tell you the story. Basically, these are stories about the
relationships.
CM: And it takes you back to probably the most positive stage of the relationship.
MP: That is right.
CM: Takes them back so it creates a positive framework.
MP: Yes, so step three is: Who opposed the relationship? What did they have to
overcome? What were the obstacles?

Page 2

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

CM: Mark, not step three but question three.

MP: Question three. Sorry.
CM: Yeah, we are still on the first step.
MP: That is right. So what are your greatest memories from the beginning? What are
the funny things that you did? What are the crazy things that happened? What did you
do together before you had children? What did you enjoy doing? What kind of people
were you?
This is not only a way to bring a positive loving memories into the couple but it also as
an interventionist gives you tremendous amount of information. It gives you information,
first of all, you understand the story of how they began, you learn all sorts of invaluable
things about who pursued whom? What were they doing before? What kind of key
decisions did they make when they became a couple?
CM: Yes, and crucial, crucial is, Who opposed the relationship and who was in favor of
the relationship and did that change? because that is the information on the resources
also.
MP: Yes, you learned it more about their family, you learn more about the sources of
tension at the beginning, you also learn about how in love were they? I mean you can get
a sense of that. How much passion was there? And the other reason this is so important
is because this arms you with some of the most powerful meetings that they have on the
relationship. So as an interventionist, if you know what a couple had to go through to
stay together or how much passion someone felt at the beginning or the
CM: You know that you can always take them back to that so that if they tell you that
they had a very sexy passionate relationship, you know your job is going to be that much
easier because once theyve had it, you can always revive that and take it back to that. It
is more difficult when they say, We never really felt passionate about each other. We
were just friends. If they say that then you know that you can go to the friendship as a
big source of strength and you can say, I feel that you are still best friends. You look
like best friends.
MP: That is right. Basically, you uncover the couples identity as a couple and that is
something that you especially at times when you are giving people directives or you are
dealing with peoples objections. Oh, no, but we cant. Oh, yes, you can. I know that
you had this kind of love. You told me yourself. How did [Inaudible][00:07:31.23]?
You said the first time you saw her. Right? Duh-duh-duh like that.
CM: Right.

Page 3

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

MP: Or can you have a sense of the story of the relationship? So, if it is a couple that
came together and they were disapproved by both sides of the family and they did it
against all odds, well, then when it comes time for them to make a shift or make a
decision or take action in the relationship, you can say, Yeah, you know, you guys have
already come over all odds before.
CM: That is right. And you already did it. You have the courage. You are brave.
MP: Yep, you know how to fight for this relationship so that kind of information is
invaluable so it is really important that you start off with the positive and with the most
powerful memories, the most powerful experiences they have as a couple because it arms
you as someone who has to persuade them to take the action that they need to take.
CM: And it also toughens them in their complaints. It is difficult to become totally bitter
and angry after you remember the funny or the passionate things about the beginning of
the relationship so you have created a higher spiritual atmosphere.
MP: Yes, it is an Elevation Strategy.
CM: Right.
MP: Yep, and so what happens is
CM: Wait. I want to add something there. Even situations of infidelity because we had a
question about how do you deal when they come in with the problem of infidelity? Even
more so in a situation of infidelity you want to start like this because you want to take
them back to the positive in the relationship. Sorry, Mark. Go ahead.
MP: Yeah, so basically what is nice about this also is that while you are talking about
these positive things these joy and love, passion and overcoming odds this is when in
the midst of these good feelings, one of the members of the couple will usually bring up
the source of pain that is interfering with the pleasure of remembering these good times
and they will probably refrain their problem given the context of love and togetherness
that will phrase the problem in a different way. When you do that you will often see
operational components of the problem. Someone will say, Yes, but this was great and
this was why it causes me so much pain when we break, and that is basically the
presenting problems complaint.
CM: Right. When I think that he had an affair with another woman or when I realized
that we dont communicate anymore, we only fight or when there is no affection between
us or there is no sex between us, whatever is the presenting problem.
MP: Uh-hmm. So first off, when they say that, you can say, Yes, I see that is something
that we have to work on and I know that you have this love, now that I know. You think
you have this way of always redirecting to the fact, to the beginning, to the promise of
what they have experienced before knowing that you can bring them back to that.

Page 4

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

So the next thing is to understand more about their life. If one of the spouses starts to
complain about something, you want to understand more about their day to day kind of
knitty-gritty existence so what is an example of a Cloe, let us talk about an example of
a kind of problem, a presenting problem that a couple will have and that you will go back
and understand like how they do it for instance. Sometimes there are household issues
that are not being taken care of.
CM: Right. For example, it should be a traditional marriage where he works and she is
home with the children and he works long hours and she complains that she is at home
with the children when actually it was a joint decision to have the children. The children
were not an accident so it is an organizational problem for her not to feel lonely, for him
to be able to work, for both of them to feel that they are a team. A lot of the problems can
be summarized under the concept that they are not collaborating with each other like a
team.
MP: Uh-huh, and so what is great about this is that 90 percent of problems are basically
when couples are not meeting their needs and 90 percent of the reasons that people arent
meeting their needs once they are a couple, once they are busy with work and children is
that there is an operational issues. There are difficulties with the schedule, there are
difficulties with people allocating their time and attention and energy to meeting each
others needs. As a coach or interventionist, when you can find an operational problem
like this, it is like you kind of hit the jackpot because you can give the couple a directive
which is an immediate practical way to meet their needs and shift the relationship. You
can give them concrete things to do so that they get concrete results and the other side
benefit is that when you give people operational solutions, when you help them overcome
a problem like this like just getting time, getting energy, getting fun to do something is
that you are helping them run their operations. It is very hard to hurt them when you are
doing that. It almost always brings an improvement to their lives.
CM: Right. So to summarize the steps, after you have gone through the positive aspects
of their past, their initial romance, their good memories and so on, you get into their
current situation, their relationships with other people and their daily operation and at that
point, you can begin to either make suggestions or even better as questions about why
they are organized the way they are organized. Conduct the operations of the family in
the way they conduct them.
MP: Exactly. Let us talk about the questioning. Say that you were dealing with a couple
like we said that there is a disagreement about work hours for instance or the fact that one
of the parents, one of them is at home being a full time parent and the other one is at
work.
CM: Right. For instance, excuse me, do you want me to give a couple of examples?
MP: That sounds great.

Page 5

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

CM: Okay, for example, the wife might say, I resent that he is at work having fun while I
am stuck at home with the little children. There you begin to see that there is a whole
assumption that he is having fun. So you might want to ask her, Is it always fun for him
at work? Is it sometimes difficult? Does he have a difficult job? Are there conflicts at
work? You know for this is the fun that you imagine and when you say you are stuck
with the children at home, did you choose that or would you prefer to go to work and
have a job instead of taking care of the children? So in that you begin to question their
decisions without yet giving a directive or for example let us say, and I am still talking
about the traditional couple, but the roles could be reversed. Or they could both be
working. It doesnt matter when they are both working usually one works more hours
than the other and so on. So then you can say, Well, you would like him to come home
earlier, for example so he would have to sacrifice some of his business. So what price
would you put on that? He feels that he has to stay let us say two hours later at work to
close a sale for example and you want him to have an early dinner with you or you want
him to come home early. I think it would be fair to put a prize on that dinner. The dinner
is not just what the dinner will cost. It is the money that he doesnt make in those two
hours. So would you say that is a 100-dollar dinner, 500-dollar dinner, 2,000-dollar
dinner, 6,000-dollar dinner? So you know how you are making the decision if that is the
decision that you are actually making.
MP: Yes. The moment that a member of a couple starts to have a, basically, youve
identified the beliefs that could be causing a problem. Like for instance, the complaint.
Perhaps there are one people in life that is complex. People tend to try to stick with
certain simple beliefs that are getting in their way through. So it is important to question
that they have been able to kind of poke the belief a little bit, nudge it around. It seems
that if it makes sense and this is basically the Socratic Method. It is an ancient method.
It is probably the oldest, really, really effective method for helping someone to question
their own beliefs. It came about with Socrates used to debate people who had different -leaders who had different [Inaudible][00:22:02.08] movement and each increase and they
would have some belief system like for instance that you can pull in an example that you
can achieve divinity by starving yourself or by abusing your body for instance. You
know an old like an extremist belief, Socrates would sit with the person and say, Well,
let us have a discussion about this and do you agree that this is not a reasonable -- either
of us is not holding a reasonable position that we are willing to look at changing them?
and he would say yes and then he will basically them to talk about what are the logical
consequences of having those beliefs and questioning those beliefs and basically taking
them to a point where they see that it doesnt really make sense. Well, operationally, you
dont have to be Socrates to use this. If you are an interventionist and you are talking to
someone about, for instance, some people have a belief that you cannot hire a maid in the
house, right? Or you cant hire a cook, or you cant delegate things in the house.
CM: Let me give some examples of questioning that kind of belief. First of all, it is
important to identify the belief, they usually say something so you are discussing their
daily operations and then the complaint comes. For example, the husband says, For me
it is very important to have a clean house, a place that is ticked off to come home to a
clean house. So that is a belief system. The house has to be clean. So then you say,

Page 6

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

Oh, and is this a complaint? And he says, Yes, because my house is always a mess.
My wife cannot keep things in order and everything is always dirty and messy and there
is no dinner prepared, or whatever he says. Then you can say, So, you are saying that
this job is your wifes job, right? and he says, Yes. So then the question could be
How was that decided? How was it decided that it is your wifes job? Couldnt you hire
somebody to do that? So there comes usually the answer is the belief, the prejudice. So
he might say, No, I believe that one should take care after ones self and one should do
all the chores ones self. And for example, this is a couple that I worked with recently.
He is a doctor. And so because I worked long hours as a doctor, we decided that she
stays at home with the children so she has to do all these chores. There you have the
limiting belief that is part a syllogism where it is wrong. The syllogism is wrong and the
syllogism would go like somewhat like this: Everyone should do their own chores.
Whoever doesnt do their own chores. Say, my wife doesnt really do the chores. My
wife is a failure. That would be a syllogism similar to Socrates. All men are mortal.
John is a man. John is mortal. Except that in the syllogism, all men are mortals. That is
true. All men are mortal. You cant find an exception to that but you can find many
exceptions to people who do not do their chores themselves and are not failures.
MP: So in other words, syllogism is a somewhat technical term, [Inaudible][00:21:11.19]
term for a belief that is kind of logically
CM: Incorrect because there are too many exceptions to it.
MP: Yeah, so for instance, you know, like you said, all men are mortal. John is mortal.
Therefore John
CM: John is a man therefore John is mortal. It is true. Yes.
MP: So in the case of a couple, you will often find that people have certain belief
systems like basically is which we call a syllogism which is a belief that we take care of
ourselves, we dont get help. Kids to be seen and not heard. You know they come and
these are usually very culturally loaded belief that people have.
CM: Usually what we get when we are coaching or what we are consulted about is a
strong belief like that that hampers their everyday life that makes for unhappiness. So
then the idea is how do you change that? So for example, in the case of the doctor and
this was the couple that had all the money in the world and lived in a huge house and the
husband absolutely refused to have any help whatsoever in the house. The wife had to
take care of everything so I began by asking him whether in his work in the hospital, he
gave injections to the patients. And he said, No, the nurses do that. So and then, do
you clean the beds in the hospital? No, he said, there is cleaning people that do that.
Then I said, it is not that you dont believe in delegating. You do clearly delegate certain
chores. Then he said, Yes, but at home one has to do everything, and so part of doing
everything is giving quality of life to children, isnt it? Yes. And do you think that
these chores interfere with the quality time with children? So you guide him to where it
is possible to delegate without being a bad person. Is that a good example, Mark?

Page 7

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

MP: That is a great example. So I mean basically, you know, we are talking about you
come up with people who have got all belief systems that are hampering them and you
need to skillfully take them from that belief system to another belief that is going to be
more operationally sound for the family or for the couple so the people are getting needs
then. So if we are going to back up here and turn to the steps, Cloe.
CM: Yes.
MP: Someone sits down with the couple, they ask the five questions about their origins,
and understand the identity and the story of the couple, then one member of the couple is
going to talk about their complaint, right? Yes, but there is this problem. Then you
interview them and you understand the knitty-gritty of their schedule and basically how
their family operations are going. Then you want to find if there is a belief of some sort
of where are things getting hang up, where is someone is getting too tired working on one
thing over and over or where there seems to be in a quality between the couple or maybe
the couple is forcing equality where there doesnt have to be one. You basically have to
put on your thinking cap and think, well, what is the simplest solution operationally for
this couple to get something
CM: Right, and there are certain areas that come up repeatedly so you have to make sure
that you cover all those areas so that you have the right information to be able to ask a
question or to make a suggestion. So for example, one area is sex. How is their sex life?
What are their beliefs about sex? And since you already established the positive
atmosphere, you can feel comfortable in asking about that. Another huge area is
finances. Who makes the money? Who spends that? Are they a team? Are they in
agreement about their priorities? Are their priorities wrong?
For example, I was recently working with a couple who had huge car payment expenses
and they didnt have any money to spend on a baby sitter for little children so that they
could go on a date together once in a while. Obviously, they have the wrong priorities as
a couple without the children once in a while was more important than the fancy cars. So
you deal with the whole area of finances, the whole area of relatives, the whole area of
the work situation of each one of them and of course, the raising of the children and their
beliefs and practices in terms of how to raise the children and what is the priority with
respect to the children. For example, do you mind if I give an example here, Mark?
MP: No, please do.
CM: Okay. For example, I worked with a couple recently where he goes out of town
three days a week for his work. That is the nature of his work. He is away for three days
every week. Inevitably during those three days, the wife gets in conflicts with the tenyear-old son and the conflicts are usually around something that she wants him to do. For
example, now you have to do your home work or turn off the TV, or you cannot play your
video game anymore something like that and the boy gets upset and they fight with
each other which is in interrupting the husbands work so that he can be an arbiter of the

Page 8

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

situation and get the boy under control over the phone. So I questioned whether it was a
priority for the husband to be able to do his work or was the home work or the TV more
important or was the relationship between the couple more important because this
resulted in the husband coming back home already resentful thinking how incompetent
my wife is that she cannot handle a ten-year-old without me and this type of problem is
very common.
So once you question, okay, so what happens if with the ten-year-old, he doesnt do his
homework? He is going to fail in life. Well, it seems that many kids who do their
homework and fail and many kids who dont do their home work and succeed and maybe
age ten is a good age to let him be responsible for his home work so you begin to
question the idea and the tacit agreement among the spouses that are not functional
because often disagreements about how they are going to do things are tacit. They did
not even discuss it. They just do things like that and so you bring it up so they will
actually have a conversation and make a rational decision about it.
MP: Great. So once you have questioned...
CM: I can give one more example. For example, imagine that the husband is concerned
about his mother who is ill or his mother who is divorced or is a widow and feels that it is
very difficult to say no to her when she wants to visit or when she demands his time or
whatever. Well, it was decided that tacitly, never explicitly that the husband would deal
with his mother and maybe it is time for the wife to deal with his mother and for the wife
to make the plan for the week and call the mother and say, This week well be able to
see you at lunch on Sunday but I have no other time, something like that and so that
responsibility is taken away from the husbands shoulders where it was a burden and put
on the wife who doesnt have the emotional tie to the mother-in-law and for whom it is
easier to say, no, but who wants to help her husband in this regard. Does that make
sense?
MP: Great. Absolutely. So let us talk about, we have talked about the step where you
question the belief and now we are talking about you offered an alternative that generally
simplifies things, frees the peoples time and availability is at the basics.
CM: That is right. The issue is how to organize the family life so that one has the quality
of life that one wants to have. The lifestyle really does not depend so much on material
possessions. It really depends more on how you organize what you do have.
MP: And so then you basically want to reinforce that this is a decision of the family or a
couple need to make for the whole family and a couple to be happy as a unit and the
greater good of the group.
CM: Right.
MP: So then after that you basically create a plan right? You give the couple a way to
implementing this. You have them, give them a concrete thing to do like hire a maid or

Page 9

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

you could have, in some cases you put the husband for instance in charge of certain jobs
and the wife in charge of other parts of the job.
CM: A lot of the work of the coach is to help them to delegate and for each to do what is
their strength, what they do best or what is most important to them and not everything
and there doesnt have to be quality and then I like to introduce this written ideology into
this. For example, instead of talking about my work or his work or her work, talk
about our work. It is all our work. They are a team. So let us say, a traditional
marriage where the husband goes to work, the husband stays home. It is not his work. It
is our work. She has to help him to do it as well as possible.
MP: Yep. Great. So I see that there are some basic areas of life where people tend to
accumulate these kinds of operational hang ups or stoppages. It is if we could, Id like to
go through some of these now and talk about some of these specific strategies. The one
we could have talked about which is you know, this is going to be a listen out. I believe it
is five major sources of operational hang ups and one of them is the allocation of time
money and needs. So that is the example of the family who will not hire a maid, who
will not delegate, the husband has to cut the grass every time or the one where the wife
will complain about the husbands work and demand hours that he spent on his work and
so is actually trying to persuade to change his job and so forth. So that is one. So, in
those cases, where we have the allocation of time, you need to question and wonder
whether they are wonder that really is it, whether they have beliefs that are preventing
them from allocating the time and resources in the more effective way, right.
CM: Yeah. Let me give an example of another belief that is very typical and that is
wrong. For example, the wife said she wants the husband to have shorter hours at the
risk of losing his job or even might even quit his job and so the typical statement that you
get, you know the husband might say, it doesnt matter because I know that I am very
smart and I am going to be successful in anything I do and the wife might agree, Yeah, it
doesnt matter. He is going to be successful no matter what he does. And then you say,
Well, you know, you dont really know that. If he loses this position, he may not have a
similar position. He may not get back. You might have to go to work. Then the children
will have to be in day care. Is that what you want?
MP: Uh-hmm. So you are talking about a specific couple you work with where the
husband was being encouraged by the wife, Hey, you are working too many hours. Why
dont you switch jobs?
CM: I've had many couples like that and
[Crosstalk]
MP: And he is thinking about Yep, maybe I will.
CM: A typical false belief is I can be successful at anything or he or she can be
successful in anything. That is not true. Sometimes you have to take care of what you

Page 10

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

have already been successful here.
MP: That is right.
CM: You may not have another opportunity.
MP: Yeah, so that is an example where you find that belief system and you basically
need to challenge it for the couple.
CM: That is right.
MP: All right. So here is the second category of very common operational issues and
these are prejudices of unfair thoughts or complaints that develop in the couple. So one
example, the wife, every time she looked at her husband, she thought of someone else.
Right, Cloe?
CM: Uh-hmm.
MP: Would you like to tell a story?
CM: Yes, this is typical. For example, I have a hard time with my husband because he
reminds of my father or he reminds me of my uncle who was abusive or something like
that. That is really completely unfair. Unfair to the new person that the husband is and
actually it is interesting because research shows that women typically are attracted to men
who resembled the men in their family so it is inevitable that she would be reminded but
to use it as a reason not to love the husband is what is wrong.
MP: So, if you heard something like that in a couple, you will basically challenge that.
Youd say, you understand that this is a completely human being than your uncle?
CM: Right, and how unfair it is not to see what is unique about him.
MP: Uh-hmm. Great and so
CM: I remember a situation where this wife had been sexually molested by her uncle and
she used this as an excuse that the husbands sexual overtures reminded her of her uncle.
Well, that is totally unfair to the husband.
MP: You basically call it and you say, you know is just not acceptable.
CM: That is right. That is right, yeah?
MP: Because it is unfair.
CM: It is unfair.

Page 11

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

MP: Yeah, and so one of the ways to know this to complain unfairs is if the person being
complained about has no other way to correct that.
CM: That is right. What can he do about the uncle? The uncle is dead already.
MP: Yep, or whether the person is being complained about. Is there a positive intent or
their motivations are being completely overlooked or ignored.
CM: That is right.
MP: So thats the typical one with the husband who is working too many hours and the
wife is saying, Well, he is just having fun at work. Well, you know what? It is
important also to look at his positive intent in trying to support his family and so forth.
CM: That is right.
MP: So a third category of typical operational breakdowns are when operations are deprioritized so that is when small things become suddenly big things and that is an
example of the mother who picks a fight with her ten-year-old son and gets in conflict
with him and they end up having to interrupt then call the father when he is on important
business trips. Right?
CM: Uh-hmm. Yes.
MP: So, in other words, whether or not the son is playing Play station suddenly becomes
more important to whether the husband has the presence of mind to successfully
complete the deal.
CM: That is right.
MP: Right. And so you are taking the familys livelihood and you are making it less
important than finding a detail or having a conflict with a child. Another example that
have talked about was the wife who chases the husband out when he is driving out to
work because of a carpet stain or because of the dog food on the carpet or something is
going wrong and it is a little thing that is becoming a big thing and it is almost like an
inversion of priorities so a solution to that
CM: Let me just briefly give the example because it stayed in my mind for so many
years. I was a research assistant way back, I was very young, to a famous professor who
was then a think tank. It was a think tank at Stanford University actually and our
arrangement was that I would drive to his house, leave my car there and then we would
drive together to Stanford University where his work was very important research and I
remember one day, I arrived and we were about to leave, it was an important day with
me, things and so on and the wife rushes out of the house screaming. The little kid had
spilt something on the carpet and there was a stain on the carpet and the house was rented
and now they will really have to pay for the carpet.

Page 12

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

I wanted to say, just go to the yellow pages and hire a carpet cleaner and I didnt say
anything because I realized that it was a significant issue. The husband was a very
important person. She felt that she wasnt and all of a sudden this stain created a crisis by
which her day and her situation became more important than anything else and you have
to call those things that is not being a team player.
MP: Uh-huh. So in that case, that is not where you go straight to thinking about how to
repair herself for significance. Sometimes you need to interrupt that pattern and say look
this is important for the family.
CM: And say, is this supportive of your husbands work which is not; your husbands
work today is still work of both of you. You are a team. Is this supportive of what you as
a team want to accomplish?
MP: Uh-hmm. So this third type of category where you have the operations are deprioritized, the strategy is to set the priorities straight again.
CM: Right and to make it that it is both because often, there are artificial divisions that
labor in couples. You know, it is true. He works. She takes care of the home but
basically he can work because she takes care of the home. She can take care of the home
because he works. There has to be collaboration and teamwork there.
MP: Yes, and so if you are questioning someone with this kind of belief system or this
kind of belief, the questions you want to ask are what are the top priorities? The top
priorities for family are for the couple to be happy together, for the family to have an
income and for the children to be protected and loved. Right? So anything that gets in
the ways of those priorities needs to be brought back down so then you dont want to ask
is these operational issues supporting the top priorities in the family? By the way, when
you are talking to someone, you dont want to call it operational issue, you want to talk
specifically about the complaints. So, you say, it is the carpet stain and the problem of
the carpet stains or in the top priorities of the family which is you need to be happy as a
couple for the family to have an income and so the children can be protected and loved.
CM: But I often use the metaphor of work so if it is a business person for example, you
can say you know that a business and its operation that have to be conducted and when
the operations are not carried out well, the business fails and so in your company, I'm sure
there has to be agreement among the top people as to what these operations should look
like. Well, a family is the same, there are operations that have to be conducted and so
you use the metaphor of whatever the work that they are accustomed to think about is.
MP: Uh-hmm. So then once you have that kind of in place, then with the wife for
instance, you might work on ways for her to be, find her ways to be more significant after
that. Does that make sense?
CM: Well, the significance comes in these examples from being a team player and for
example, supposed or again the example of the stay-at-home wife, she could help by

Page 13

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

visiting the husband at work or by connecting to the wife of other people at work by
doing acts of kindness in relation to the company or whatever it could be, a medical
world, it could be a legal world, whatever the work world is.
Ill give you another example. For example, this wife that was very shy and she is
reluctant to participate in situations with husbands coworkers or visit his work and so on
because she is shy and she is very focused on whether they like me or not and most of the
time she thinks they dont like her and she had talked before about being very Christian.
So I said to her, You told me you are a very Christian person. Is that a Christian
attitude? and she looked at me puzzled then I said, Well, if you are a true Christian, it is
not just going to church. It means that when you talk to someone, you are going to do an
act of kindness. You want to be compassionate so instead of thinking do they like me, do
they dislike me, are they going to treat me badly, perhaps you could think of one kind
thing that you could say to each person that you will meet in relation to the work. Does
that make sense?
MP: Yes, exactly. That is another sense of priority.
CM: So you take her to the highest priority which is being a good Christian.
MP: Yep, you take her to a higher level of values. You say, This is a priority for you.
Once you know something about someones belief systems I am talking about their
values then it is great to be able to use that and it helps them resolve, basically, resolve
inside themselves, conflicts and things like that. So in this case, it was a woman who
wanted to do good but she was shy so you help her.
A fourth category of organizational breakdowns are team breakdowns is the habitual
complaints that go on for years so they are kind of ineffective complaints that become a
problem and so the example that we talked about is the husband who drinks too much.
Right? They go to social occasions, he has too many drinks. The wife is in a total
quandary because she doesnt know how to correct him from drinking too much. He is
not an alcoholic, he is not causing problems but this does she feels that he is going to
embarrass himself, right, Cloe? Will we talk about that solution?
CM: Right, and so we brought down the drinking behavior and she was embarrassed to
tell him not to drink in front of other people so she didnt know what to do. So in
breaking down the drinking behavior, he said that what he is used to is to holding her
drink in his hand, to sipping something while he is talking to people and so if she could
just without saying anything regularly bring him a glass of Pellegrino water during this
social event, it would be fine with him. He still would be sipping something. So we
broke down the behavior to where it was manageable.
MP: That is great. So in this case, when you have one partner who is complaining on an
ongoing basis about something that the other partner is doing or isnt doing, then one
strategy for dealing with that is to break down the complaint of the behavior so she deals
with the complaint in the unit that gives both of the couple something to do. So in that

Page 14

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

case, it gives the wife something a way to help the husband not to drink alcohol. He
needs to drink but it doesnt have to be alcohol so she can control and contribute in the
way or help him to be drinking something that will get him drunk. Go ahead.
CM: Right. I wanted to say that of course you cant forget the strategy that I think we
talked about which is the executive meeting. For those ongoing complaints that can
poison the everyday life of a couple, I like to tell them that they have to choose a day and
a time where they will go to what I call an executive meeting that for just the two of
them, if there is a baby, they can take the baby, preferably it should be at a restaurant so it
is a public place so they have to be polite to each other and then during that meeting that
is going to be about hour or an hour and a half, they will bring each one will keep a
notebook with all their complaints and they will talk about all the negative issues, but
then during the week, there will be no talk of negative or challenging issues or
controversial issues. They will be saved for that special executive meeting so that the
ongoing complaint doesnt poison the whole relationship.
MP: So that is another way that you have one spouse complaining about the other and
you empower them both to deal with those complains and give them something to do that
they both have
CM: Right, and then there are rules for that executive meeting. For example, they are
not allowed to say, No. At the most, they can say, I will think about that, or
Maybe. They always have to end the meeting by helping the other person stay safe. It
cannot end with humiliation of one of the partner and they need to think that this is one of
many meetings because there are issues in marriage that go on forever and that are never
completely resolved. It is just the complications of living. The meetings have to end in a
positive way so the meeting ends with them planning what they are going to do that
weekend for example or planning a vacation or something like that. These are actually
the Japanese businessmen rules. It is the way that the Japanese conduct business. That is
why they have such long hours and long meetings because every meeting they have to
end up with a situation where they help each other saves face. It is a win-win situation
for both of them and it ends in a positive note because they value more keeping the client
than winning over the client.
MP: Great.
CM Okay. So I have interrupted you too much.
MP: No, it is okay. It is great. So I was just saying with the common complaints kind of
thing, when you are breaking down the behavior or the complaint in the component both
of them, both people get to control often for instance with the example of very typical
example of the husband who comes home and he thinks that the house is too messy and it
makes him depressed, it makes him sad around his wife, she feels criticized, right? And
he just says, Im just like that. I am very detail-oriented and it drives me crazy to see
clothes on the floor, right? So in that case also, you want to give him something in the
situation so he is partially responsible for the result so for instance, you have them work

Page 15

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

together, they hire someone, they hire a maid.
CM: Oh, I would put in charge because he has these serious complaints. I would put him
in charge of the finances and in charge of hiring the person that will pick up, clean, or
whatever and also supervising the person.
MP: Uh-hmm. So youll often take a person who is complaining of the person who cares
more for the result than the other one does.
CM: That is right.
MP: So you will empower them to give them something that they can do so that they
have more control over the problem. They have more invested in the success of solving
the problem. Great. Well, this has been the a lot of content. I hope that it is coming
across.
CM: Yeah, so maybe we could take a couple of questions.
MP: Yeah, absolutely. So, if you have any questions, press star-two. On the webcast
also, I am reading your questions so feel free to put up the question there. Well have the
people go over the transcript because it seems like a lot of content but it is really amazing
if you could get the skill of understanding how the operations are, what the patterns are
between a couple or in a family and where they are taking up too much, using up too
much energy, too much attention, too much time on things that are draining one person
and therefore draining the entire family of their energy and their enjoyment and just being
able to look at things from an operational perspective like that is hugely valuable and it is
something that very few people teach in the relationship context. Okay, we have a
question. Sarah.
Sarah: Hey, can you hear me okay?
CM: Yes.
MP: Okay, great.
Sarah: Hi. I dont know where these pertains but like when you talked about the doctor
and being upset about the cleaning and all of that, it seems like that is not what he is
really upset about. So like where does driving the person to like get curious about what
the partner is really having a problem with come in? Does that make sense?
CM: Yes, of course. In this case, like in most cases, it was a stacking of problems so one
thing that upset him was that the wife had more money than he did and a stronger family
than he did even though he made a lot of money also but you cannot disregard the
importance of what they tell you that really bothers him. The mess in the house really
bothered him even though it was one of a series of stacking issues.

Page 16

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

Sarah: So, how do you like if you deal with a couple that you are only going to meet
with once and the wife comes running out of the house after the husband tells her about
five things. How do you advise them to to me it is like she is running after you for a
whole different reason. How do you guide them to when they are together, take a step
back and maybe like get curious about the other persons behavior instead of just
reacting.
CM: You offer a solution even in the form of questions or suggestions or directives for
the concrete thing that is the issue. For example, the messy house or the stain in the
carpet. Okay? And then, you talk about what underlying issues there might be and then
you are offered questions and solutions for the underlying issues.
Sarah: And then like what, I guess this is you know, I guess it is very
CM: Let me finish because this is very important. Because if you go to the underlying
issues first, without solving the concrete thing that the man said bothered him for
example, he is going to feel you havent really helped him with what it is important to
him.
Sarah: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
CM: So you first have to help him with what he said what was important to him and then
go to the underlying issues.
Sarah: So then once they are not in your office or in front of a coach, how do you what
is the tip you give to them in a moment like that so that they are not just, so that they are
more intelligent and feeling when they are connecting with one another.
CM: Yes, to dealing with situations where you see people only one time?
Sarah: Yeah.
CM: Oh, my gosh. That is difficult. You know that...
Sarah: No, I am not. I am just thinking like not everyone has the luxury of connecting
with a coach or a therapist so if am with a couple that is going to be alone and the
husband and wife are having trouble but how can we guide them when they are not with
us?
CM: So you give them a question that they can ask themselves at that moment of crisis
so they can ask themselves is this conducive to a happy relationship and a happy family?
Is this aligned with the priorities that we have together and if it is not, dont focus on it.
Sarah: Or like what else could this mean?
CM: No, because what else could this mean may not stop the problem right there. I want

Page 17

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

to give them something that would prevent them from saying the negative thing. For
example, the stain in the carpet, she might then say Oh, I can see that you dont care at
all. You are just happily going off to work and leaving me with this problem. Is that
conducive to a happy relationship to say that? No. So then dont say that. You see what
I mean?
Sarah: Yeah, thank you.
CM: You are welcome.
MP: Sure. It is important in doing this kind of work especially with the couple as that
you want to come up with the solution to what they are asking for and then they will ask
for the next thing. As a coach, you dont want to imply that there are more things that
they have to take care, you know the more detail that they havent spoken.
CM: Right, right. Because it can get to look like you are creating problems for them
instead of solving problems.
MP: That is right. So in this case, we were talking about your are working with a couple
about an organizational issue or an operational issue and youve come up with a solution
to that and the next session or the next step might be to go to the six human needs or
understanding each others needs all that is important stuff and that would be kind of
helps you to deal like once you have the complaint being the open sore or something like
that. The thing that is really visible to everyone in causing problems. You solve that on a
practical level and then you can work in a more sustainable ways in making sure that
everyone is meeting each others needs.
CM: And the fifth human need is perfect for them for this because you have them
explain for us that each one explains what their main vehicles are for fulfilling each
others needs and then they grade themselves and each other. They give each other a
grade as to how well they fulfill the other persons needs and then they give tips to each
other on how to improve their grade.
MP: Yep.
CM: But it is good to do that after you have corrected some of the operations that are just
not functional.
MP: That is right.
CM: You know I want to say something that is interesting. I have a student and I think
that he is retiring now but he said strategic intervention is in Mainland China and he can
only see each family once for two hours. He works for the government. That is all that
he is allowed so each family in this huge rural area in China has one or two hour
consultation with him and that is it. So he posted me that problem. It was so interesting
and he has become a total strategic interventionist. He has to be.

Page 18

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

MP: One thing about this practical thing is also when you are doing an intervention,
often if you watch the films of Tony for instance, often what he is doing is getting one
step taken care of in an emotionally significant way and then that step becomes an
example of other ways you do things in life and it shows you that you can break through
so for instance with Karen and Warren, Warren breaking the chair and having that, for me
that in itself is kind of a trivial action but it was significant in that it was a step that the
couple, it was breaking out of the boundaries and the deadlock, the box that the couple
was in and once he was able to do that, he was able to go home and do it in other areas so
it is very, very helpful to a couple if you just say, hey, you know, you can get a maid. You
dont have to be in this box where you are fighting each other and wrestling over time
and energy and what are the results that are being done. You could say, Be creative.
Sex is like this, and once you put them there then they can apply it to other areas so it
actually does become systemic in terms of the effects. Cloe, we have another question. I
think we should
CM: Let us do one more.
MP: Great. Okay. David.
David: Yes, hi, there.
CM: Hi.
David: Hi, Cloe. David. Got a question about leverage and judgment. Often times
when there is a couple in trouble, one of them in my experience, you have much more
experience than I do, one of them oftentimes wants the relationship to continue more than
the other one and I know you get leverage by asking the questions and trying to get them
to associate to the loving feelings that they had originally and which may bring one of the
couples closer but might not bring them both in the same place at the same time and then
when you tell the other, one of them that what they are doing is not acceptable because it
is not fair, arent we running the risk of creating a judgment and then when we judge, we
lose ability to influence the other person? Are there ways of doing that
CM: All right, yes. You dont say it like that. Im sorry if I conveyed it like that. You
dont say, it is not fair. You say and do you think that it is fair that you dont see him as a
separate person? You think of him as so similar to your uncle? Is that fair to him? What
would happen if somebody would treat one of your children badly because they reminded
of somebody else who is bad, because of the way the child looks for example? Take it to
a place where it would be completely unacceptable. What if the teacher in school treated
Johnny badly because it reminds her of the kid she had the previous year?
David: Got it. That makes a lot of sense.
CM: Yeah. So it is often when you phrase things as questions, then they are not
offensive; it is just a question.
MP: That is a part of a Socratic aspect in the way that Cloe works here.

Page 19

Copyright 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

CM: Yes, because Socrates only ask questions.

MP: Right. Yep, and he always comes up with a counter-example that doesnt make
sense.
CM: Right.
MP: And so those counter-examples are very useful, to get very skillful when someone
that has an irrational belief. Oh, really? What would happen if they did that here?
What if they did that in the army? What if they did that in a school? you know, that kind
of thing.
CM: Right. Okay, guys.
MP: That way you are putting the pressure on the belief rather than on the person.
CM: Rather than on the person. Exactly.
MP: Yeah.
CM: Okay. I think it is time to end.
MP: Okay, guys, I have a question that on the -- I think we are running out of time but
we have questions on the webcast from Marge and Neil. You could email us at -- I am
copying them down but you could email us with a little bit more detail. We'd love to
answer those as well but I think not right now. I think we are over time. So, we'll say
good-bye. One moment. Okay, everyone. Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, Mark.
Bye.

Page 20