DoctorOz: Jordan Peterson Helps Couple on Brink of Divorce

We're back with clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson and Stacey and Tracy are also with us. They say their marriage is in trouble and today we're asking the question, are you sabotaging your relationship without even knowing it? Stacey, I was caught off guard when you said that you'd actually already printed out the divorce papers. Why haven't you signed them? Because there's always that hope. There's always the glimmer of hope that we can change. My heart's still in it. I just don't know how to put the pieces back together to make it right. Dr. Peterson, this is a challenge that I think we're seeing all over the country. You're an expert in this area, so I hand the ball to you. Well, there's lots of things that are positive about your relationship that are obvious right away. I mean, the first is that you have the grounds of real friendship. The second is, you both actually appear to want this to work. I think a lot of your problem is actually practical, to tell you the truth. And I would say it's also not so much a matter of global change. I see things that aren't working in your marriage that will sink a marriage. So, for example, people need to talk to each other for about 90 minutes a week, just about what they're doing in their lives and their problems. You need that. And you need to have a date at least once a week and probably twice a week. It's absolutely crucial. And then it's also the same with re-establishing a romantic bond. It's like you're not romantically entangled right now because you're alienated from one another, and you might not want to get close physically. But this isn't a matter of wanting to, to begin with. It's a matter of having to, in order to rekindle what's going on in your relationship. And so I would say, and the last thing I would say is, it's probably useful for you guys to sit down and figure out how to distribute the duties in your life, because it's a big part of your life. And I would say, what you should do practically, since you do appear to like each other and you want the relationship to work, is to start micro-negotiating, so you know who's responsible for what. And you want to fight and argue about that till you get it straight. I've heard you say that, that don't agree to things you don't agree to. Yeah, yeah, well that's a great, that's a great negotiating issue. Is that something you think is happening? Do you feel like that, either of you? Oh yeah. Okay, so here's a hint about that. So it's okay to say no to things. You want to only say yes to things that you agree with, especially when you realize you're going to repeat them endlessly. Right? So you have a right to say no. If you're an agreeable person, then, which is a personality trait associated with warmth and compassion, it's really easy to try to please someone else. And you can tell if you're doing that too much if you get resentful. You know how terrible that is. And so even though it's a battle to do that negotiation, it's way better than ending up in the situation that you're in. What about really small things? Well, that's another thing, you know. People think, well, we shouldn't fight. It's like, no, you should fight. A lot. But you should make up. So you fight because there's problems. Like, who should do what? That's a big problem. How are we going to handle our finances? That's a big problem. How are we going to handle our mutual careers and the trouble of having children? Of course you're going to argue about that because you don't see things the same way. Think, well, but what you want to do is you want to argue towards peace. Fight. Make up. Make peace. Make an agreement. Move forward. And then fight again. And then fight again. Yeah. Well, eventually what'll happen... The fights will get farther apart and then they'll decrease in intensity. That's what'll happen. But that can take a long time.