BBC Secret of the Sexes s01e03 Episode Script

Four couples are about to go on a scientific journey.
All are at very different stages of love.
Steve and Donna are getting married.
Hayley and Jay have just split up.
I hate this, I hate it so much.
Alan and Lynn are thinking of doing the same.
Do you it is pathetic.
Millie and Sid have been married for seventy years.
All of them happy.
But why does love last for some couples and not for others? Oh I can't hold it together any more.
Now scientists think they know the answer.
They can even predict from a wedding photograph when it will go wrong.
This couple is in trouble.
But when it does can the scientists do the most important thing of all - put it right? Can I ask the purpose of this? No please continue.
Oh - excuse the mess.
Everyone dreams of finding their perfect partner.
A year ago Steve met Donna.
Since then they've had a baby and spent only one night apart.
Been apart now for about fifteen or sixteen hours and uh I just can't wait to get back to her and see her face again and - she's going to be wearing a dress, her hair's going to be done, the whole thing, so she's going to be full glory.
Every moment that we're together it's, the love is there and this love is great, yeah.
Sharn - where's my shoes.
In here.
Like all couples going up the aisle Steve and Donna believe their marriage will last for ever.
But today almost half of all marriages will end in divorce.
Six years after their wedding day Hayley and Jay have separated.
Jay had been having an affair.
The number one reason relationships fail.
And how do I know that it's not going to happen again? How can we get it back again? Please, so tell me how, what, what you think, how we can? I don't know.
Good morning.
Alan and Lynn went through the same thing twenty-five years ago.
They stayed together.
Now their marriage is threatened by the second biggest reason for divorce - constant arguing.
I arrive late home its where have you been, why are you late? No.
- I've su, prepared your dinner.
- No.
The least you can be here is on time or at least let me know you're going to be late.
I don't want such and such bananas I want Caribbean bananas and all this.
I mean do you realise uh - it is pathetic.
It's but that's so petty to bring that up.
But it is that I.
Shouldn't even no rubbish.
But Millie and Sid show that love doesn't have to go wrong.
Young people today seem to me to be looking for utter perfection.
Where's where is there perfection? Maybe in heaven.
I know it's, I know it sounds daft but everybody's got the possibility of creating their own heaven on this little bit of earth, if you want to.
So in the presence of god and before this congregation I proclaim that they are husband and wife.
Love, in the early days it always seems so easy.
But for many couples those happy feelings can soon turn sour.
Alan is manager of a large golf and leisure complex.
Go on, go on.
He's been married to Lynne for thirty-two years.
But now he seems dissatisfied.
I'm disappointed, I'm disappointed that I haven't achieved more.
I'm disappointed that I don't earn more money.
I'm disappointed I don't live in a bigger house.
I'm disappointed that, you know, I can't afford a new car every year.
I'm frustrated because I haven't achieved what I would like to have achieved, out of life.
But seven years after getting married Alan's disappointment led to more than regrets.
I met this woman who I found physically attractive, and uh - we just fell into a - a, a, a highly uh - physical relationship.
And it got me away from - the domestic trivia which I found so dull.
Steady.
I didn't think that, that could happen to us at all.
Up to that point I thought we had the perfect marriage and I was very proud of him and he was on a pedestal and, and - I was fl, I was floundering, absolutely floundering because the shock was just so much.
And then a year after that I then got into another relationship.
I find that I do say to myself 'why am I still here'.
Um I should have gone out and done something different or, or whatever but um, I don't know why I just, I just am still here.
Lynne and Alan struggle on.
But younger women who suffer infidelity are twice as likely to take decisive action.
Three weeks ago Hayley found out about Jay's affair.
And immediately threw him out of the house.
After fourteen years and three children together he's now living in a friend's spare room.
I felt on my own for the first week.
Um very alone uh.
I wanted to finish it.
That I didn't want to see anybody.
But uh - I couldn't believe what I had done.
And the thought of other people's perceptions.
I felt ashamed knowing I'd just wrecked everything.
He said he adores me and he, he wants to spend the rest of his life with me and that he's made the biggest mistake of his life.
Which we both know - it's just how do we get over this? But I suppose in one way it can only get worse before it gets better.
It's the only way I'm looking at it.
I love her with all my heart.
And more.
Love her back.
I hope he'll be able to talk to me - I don't want to lose that sort of thing that, that he doesn't talk to me 'cos uh - he's, he's always spoken.
Infidelity has all but destroyed Hayley and Jay's marriage.
But temptation is nothing new.
- He did have a roving eye.
- Oh yes.
But he never had, if anybody's eyes roved a little it might have been mine.
Uh but not, but nothing could ever have happened I know that.
So you tell me.
No I know that, I know that.
Millie and Sid seem just as in love as the day they married.
But why do some couples remain so positive while others descend into negativity? Dr.
Angela Rowe is an experimental psychologist and an expert in the science of love and she suspects that the answer might lie in how our feelings literally alter the way we see our partners.
To find out if she was right she took photographs of twenty volunteers.
And four couples.
She then altered them into three progressively better looking images and three progressively worse looking images.
But when it came to a test who would choose which version of their partner? Your task is to select the best representation of your partner.
Your two minutes start now.
As the women settled in to look at the photographs each had to work out how her partner really looked to her.
In Donna's eyes did Steve look like this or this? Did Jay's ears really stick out quite that much? Quite confident I've got it right.
So one of them ha a big Spam head, he aint' got a big Spam head.
And was Alan beauty or beast? Next it was the men who were faced with the same dilemma.
Please start now.
There were some that were sort of outrageous no - uh - well from far off away not to be here but there was, there was a few that were.
And it sort of made it very difficult to find the right one.
I wasn't happy with any of them.
If he was my ph, photograph and I had to pay you I'd smash your machine.
OK you've finished gentlemen, thank you very much.
The tests went really well.
Um our hypotheses seem to have been supported.
Um and that's to say that the couples who are very happy and showed this idealisation of each other tended to choose partners from among the array of photos that were slightly more attractive than their actual partner.
Steve chose exactly as predicted.
Picking not the real image of Donna but the most ideal.
More surprisingly Donna did pick the correct image of Steve.
Both Millie and Sid had thought the test a nonsense.
But after seventy years of looking at the real thing both picked idealised versions of their partner.
Perhaps the reason their relationship has remained so strong.
Couples who are experiencing problems in their relationship or who've been troubled in a relationship for a while now showed the opposite result.
Despite Hayley's confidence she and Jay performed as expected, picking images less attractive than reality.
Reflecting perhaps the tensions in their relationship.
In fact, only Alan and Lynne went against expectation, both picking slightly idealised versions of the other.
Possibly a sign that they see each other in a positive light.
Though for Alan the motivation was perhaps more political than scientific.
Those photographs, bless her, did her nojustice whatsoever.
So I wanted to choose the picture that I felt was the most positive.
Despite Alan's choice the experiment had finally proved that the more in love you are the more you will idealise your partner.
A process that showed no sign of fading on Steve and Donna's honeymoon to Venice.
Um - yeah it's great, it's really, really great.
It's uh nice that I want to be there for Donna it really is.
Um feel very, very comfortable.
Uh don't really have a care in the world actually.
It's like we're on this big cloud.
Just Steve and I - we're on this love cloud and it's brilliant.
But just what was producing Steve and Donna's incredible feeling of perfect union? Back from Venice we sent Steve to the Institute of Psychiatry to find out.
As Steve lay down in the brain scanner an image of Donna was projected onto a screen.
But what was happening in his brain? Neuro-scientist, Andreas Bartells, has done this test on scores of in-love men and women and consistently found the same result.
Firstly we found some activation in parts of their reward system which explains why love makes you so happy and exhilarated and motivated to be with your partner and spend as much time as you can with your partner.
I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
And at the same time we found some regions that were suppressing the activity.
And as it turns out these are exactly those regions that are activated whenever you're asked to uh make critical social judgements, moral judgements, judgements of trustworthiness and so on about another person.
Nothing else cares.
Nothing else is.
- Else matters does it.
- Nothing else matters.
All we do is care for each other.
This is, this is our in these four walls.
These regions are all suppressed in the state of love and that may explain why people say love makes people blind.
So every time Steve looks at Donna two things happen.
His reward system floods with feel good chemicals.
And another part of his brain, the areas used for critical thinking, switches off.
Making him see Donna as the world's most perfect woman.
According to Bartells there are very powerful evolutionary reasons why love affects us this way.
What people don't realise maybe is that love is a mechanism that's been built in, into our brains so that we stay together with a particular person or in the case of mothers and, and father they stay with their child and help raising it.
No crying, no.
I know.
Don't.
Unfortunately research has also found that its effects last for only two to three years.
So what will the future hold for Steve and Donna when the chemicals do wear off? What if you could predict, before you even got married whether your relationship would last or fail? At Berkeley University one professor thinks he can dojust that.
And all he needs is a photograph of a person smiling.
It's a rather preposterous claim from one perspective that a photo can tell us what life is like.
Uh - but what we did to sort of first asses that is we took women's year book photos.
These are photos taken when they were twenty years old.
And we coded how warm and connected they looked.
Keltner was particularly interested in the intensity of the women's smiles.
But just what impact had their smiles had on the rest of their lives.
When these women returned to the laboratory thirty years later at about age fifty-two what we found is that women who had uh a stronger, warmer, more enthusiastic smile - um felt greater warmth towards other people in their lives.
They felt less anxious on a daily basis.
They felt like they were accomplishing their goals more.
And perhaps most astonishing was that they were actually more content and satisfied with their marriage and experienced greater well-being in general.
But just what is it about a smile that gives Keltner his clues? One of the really interesting things about facial expressions is that they tend to involve certain muscle actions that we can't fake.
So here is what we call a pleasurable smile.
And it involves this Zygomatic major muscle that just pulls the lip corners up.
But then it involves the contraction of the orbicularis oculi which raises this part of the cheek up - there's a little uh pouching right here under the eyelid.
That's really hard to produce voluntarily and when you see that action you know the person is feeling warm and kind and, and loving.
And then when you get a, a fake smile you see less of the action around the eyes.
Keltner believes the reason some people produce fake smiles and other people real one is all down to how much stress you experience in early childhood.
So to test Keltner's theory we gave him photographs of Lynne, Alan, Hayley and Jay to analyse.
At the same time back in the UK clinical psychologist Frank Tallis had agreed to hear from the couples themselves.
Uh if I start with, with you Hayley.
I'm quite interested in your early childhood.
So first of all.
Well you know with this photo of, of Hayley uh - what's really interesting is you see a pleasurable smile but it's one that it really indicates an awareness of what other people are thinking.
So she's retracting her lips and uh sort of uh being aware of other people's regard.
I had to prove that I was doing well - like at school for instance I'd always like.
But I was very um, uh not very, I didn't.
I'd always go to the teachers "am I doing this right?" I wasn't really confident.
I was never confident when I was younger.
What's remarkable about Jay is that in all these photos we see a lot of negativity.
You cant help but be struck by how sullen he looks.
He's looking tough and even aggressive.
When you look at these photos you would assume there's, there's some marital conflict in the home and there's some sort of uh high level of strife and fighting and, and uh disconnect uh in the family.
And how did your uh you mum an dad get on? Quite a few arguments.
Um mainly sort of drink related - with uh - 'cos me dad used to play darts.
And was out near enough every night of the week.
And, and sort of when he come back there was a little argument or something like that and uh.
There used to be a bit of screaming and shouting.
Um, um.
You seemed to get a little bit upset then just thinking about it.
- Well I'd rather not say.
- OK.
OK.
In Lynne's adolescent photo is a, a lip press and a certain amount of control of the smile which suggests that she's quite aware of what others think and a little worried about that.
I don't want to stick out at all, I want tojust sort of be comfortable and safe and.
Don't make me stick out.
Um.
So do you think this is a legacy of the financial hardship? Probably.
That there was a sense of inferiority? Probable, oh yes definitely.
Inferiority, inferior is a very good word because that's definitely how I felt as a child.
The thing that you see in Alan is a real poise and calm and very high level of enthusiasm.
But what's interesting is if you look at the photo with his mum, um he's showing a lot of pride and if you go to his photograph with his dad what we see here - which is interesting - is, is a uh wince, uh accompanying his smile.
He's uh closing his eyes, furrowing his eyebrow, contracting that orbicularis oculi.
When people wince like this uh accompanying a smile it often accompanies when they've made a mistake.
And when they've done something wrong.
So maybe he feels um that something is amiss in his relationship there.
Think I was, was a bit of a disappointment one way or another.
There were high expectations that I would, I would perform to a certain academic level which I never really fulfilled.
And did, did your father express that disappointment? Um in, in later years yes.
Um do you have uh any memories of him praising you? Um - I'm sure there were times.
Um.
But do you actually find it difficult to remember? I mean.
Um yes, it's, its' not - those are memories that flash, those are the flashbacks.
How much stress a child experiences early really says a lot about how they respond to stress later in life, say in a marriage.
Uh and if they really undergo a lot of stress they have greater difficulties in, in responding to adult stress.
But being forewarned is forearmed.
If you can anticipate where you're going to be reactive or experience a lot of anger and have a little insight into that, that actually helps a lot.
Uh in your negotiations with your partner.
So if our couples could be shown how they respond to stress would it help them handle conflict better when it arises? It was time for Frank Tallis and Angela Rowe to find out.
The Trier Social Stress Test is one of psychology's most daunting examinations.
Designed to assess how well a person copes when under pressure.
Our couples will have to pitch for a newjob and perform a mental arithmetic task in front of three cameras and a panel of stony faced scientists.
To begin each participant sat quietly for half an hour while their normal level of the stress hormone cortisol was measured.
Then with that recorded the test began.
Both Alan and Lynne had reported less than ideal childhoods so how would stress affect them now over fifty year later? Um thank you very much indeed for the opportunity uh of applying for this uh very prestigious position.
We currently have a turnover ofjust something in the region of two point, we expect a turnover of two point four million.
I was also responsible for setting up all the systems, I was responsible for recruiting all the staff.
All the purchases.
Something that I'd wanted to achieve for a number of years.
While Alan appeared calm Lynne's reaction seemed very different.
Can I ask the purpose of this please? No I can't ask the purpose of this.
OK.
Please continue.
Um what shall we talk about now? I'm standing here - feeling quite uncomfortable.
You still have some time, please continue.
While Hayley and Jay prepared their presentations Alan and Lynne had to do the maths test.
Counting backwards in multiples of thirteen.
- Um nine hundred and ninety - six.
- No.
Begin again.
Nine hundred and eighty-three.
No.
One thousand and twenty two.
One hundred and eighty.
No begin again.
You still have some time.
Uh go on talk to yourselves.
How's the time, is it nearly up now? Um I put new ceilings up and replaster through the uh the mansion.
Sorry.
Huh.
Ohhh.
Sorry.
I'm really nervous.
Looks very, very uncomfortable.
I can't think of much more to say really.
Do apologise.
Nine hundred and ninety six.
Thank you.
One thousand and nine.
Nine eight three.
He's got a rash, that's around his eyes.
And up to his ears, and it's gone under his neck.
Nine seven four.
No, uh begin again please, one thousand and twenty two I think we never thought he was going to cope too well with this situation and I think um.
He's not.
Thank you.
Clearly he was so stressed, he was even more stressed than we thought he was going to be.
He seemed to be almost hyperventilating.
The guy is totally stressed out.
Very extreme.
Alright - how far did you get down on the mental arithmetic then? Haven't a clue, just kept going as far as I could.
- Yeah, did you get as far as six hundred? - Yes I think I did.
- Did you? Five hundred.
- No.
Ah probably about the same them.
- We'll check tomorrow.
- OK.
See who did best.
Well, no probably not.
My stress levels have gone right through the ceiling.
Did you.
- I'm alright now, I'm fine.
- Yes.
- What did you have to do? Had ajob interview? - Yeah.
I knew you'd be crap at that.
I thought I feel sorry for Jay.
What's the matter didn't you like it? Like you're going to break down and cry in a minute.
The very fact of having gone through a stressful situation together seemed to have brought Hayley and Jay a little closer.
But the truth about how they react to conflict would soon be revealed.
The next day Angela and Frank were briefed on the results.
On average men respond far more strongly to stress than women.
Your Cortisol response was very low.
Was very muted.
I really thought it'd be higher than that.
I thought it'd be really high.
- You cope you very well with stress.
- Ah good.
Um, um.
Hayley was initially stressed but her results show she was soon coping.
So let's move on to, to Jay.
And this should come as, as, as no surprise to you that um indeed you have a marked cortisol response so his, the stress hormone was, was very high.
I was expecting that.
Jay had appeared very stressed.
And his results showed this.
You certainly came over as being very competent and, and, and very uh confident.
That was, however, discrepant with the, the test results which showed a, a marked male cortisol response.
Well it bears out what we were, were talking about yesterday really that, that, that I appear to be coping but in reality uh I'm not actually in a comfort zone.
Alan had appeared calm - happy even - but under the surface he had been stressed.
Let's, let's move on to, to you now Lynne, with respect to your cortisol response - in this it was very marked.
Women do show an elevation in cortisol levels as a response to stress.
But it's very elevated compared to most female responses.
- And um higher than Alan's.
- Right.
Male profile really.
- So it's not at all typical then.
- No.
Lynne had appeared under pressure and her results showed that she was suffering an extreme, typically male, stress response.
It feels, looking at it like that on the graph and seeing how high it's shot um - that's a bit of a worry.
I think I understand the way that Lynne ticks but - I am - I equally accept that I have a contribution towards the way that Lynne ticks and can be more aware of the impact that perhaps I'm having on, on uh on Lynne's stress levels.
I hope I want to help him deal with his stress now.
Because I don't want it getting worse.
I feel more sympathetic towards Jay.
You know the way that it annoys me sometimes when I feel sympathetic, 'cos obviously of our situation but - if you know what I mean, but I think he understands that.
Both couples have taken another step in understanding how they really feel.
Soon they get more help to save their marriages.
But first how did Dacher Keltner rate their chances? What we see in, in the photos of Lynne and Alan is really the striking independence uh that Alan shows of the emotional composition of, of Lynne.
And it's really clear here.
He has this, this very strong, assertive, outgoing smile uh very composed.
Um and it's as if she has been pasted in.
You know she seems to be in an entirely different context than him.
What then of Hayley and Jay? Jay seems a lot different.
You know he just seems plugged in and happy and connected.
He's leaning toward her, there's a symmetry in their displays.
He's touching her, quite clearly.
So how had Jay made the shift from stressed childhood to his happy wedding photos? A really important thing that I think development psychologists have learned is that you can start off life with one family context and temperament.
And then these big events happen and they can re-direct you.
So my guess is, you know, uh between this photo and then this wedding day photo something big happened to Jay.
And you know the obvious candidate is his connection to Hayley.
Um but something clearly has given him strength and warmth.
And when we recall Alan how independent of Lynne he seems uh we see uh something different.
You know if I had to make a call for um - how their lives were going to turn out together I'm a little bit more hopeful for Hayley and Jay.
Sid.
- Do you want me? - Yes.
OK.
The mistake is thinking that that wonderful thing that you've got - you have done some work at it.
It's like going out, going to, to work.
If you want to get on you've got to, you've got to show your boss that you're doing something for your living.
And it's the same thing with a marriage.
You've got to show your wife that you care and, and you do your best for her.
And she uh, has to do the same for you.
Go on.
And as time goes on you are becoming more and more secure in your love and in your marriage and then it gets better still.
Millie and Sid show that to succeed a marriage takes work.
No it's alright.
But for couples already at the point of divorce it's almost impossible to know where to begin.
I'm just confused.
I'm confused Jay, you've just said to me out there that you should know what's going on in your head.
Jay I'm as confused as you are.
I can't believe that you're in the same relationship with me and you believe that the relationship doesn't have a problem.
I don't know what's going on in my head.
I want, I want to know.
I need to know.
It's not just how you're feeling, it's how I'm feeling as well Jay.
Now I, it reached a point where I cannot talk to you about it any more because we're just going over the same old stuff again and again and again.
Howard Markman is one of the world's foremost relationship experts.
He's worked with thousands of couples and studied what makes love thrive and what makes it fail.
We're looking for the four research based danger signs.
Based on twenty-five years of research, we used to take twenty-four hours to code one hour of video tape, micro-analytically.
Based on that research now we can focus in on four danger signs.
- Sign one - Withdrawal.
Men often do what we call the appeal to god.
Uh women pursue in the face of withdrawal.
Tell me why you're being so miserable today, come on.
What? Tell me why you're being so miserable today.
Come on uh tell me why then.
- Sign two - Escalation.
Negative, negative, negative, negative.
You're not prepared to change.
You're very - your lifestyle is the way you like it at the moment.
How would you want me change it.
Well I don't know how I would have you change it.
Well you, you must know.
But, but you're, you're inflexible.
- Sign three - Negative interpretations, you never loved me, you're just like your father.
You're not interested, you never have been interested.
No that is not correct.
- And sign four - invalidation.
When you're attacking the other person verbally, sometimes physically and when that happens the relationship is often headed for divorce.
Fortunately none of our couples showed signs of invalidation.
Though the three other danger signs were present.
But with Hayley and Jay living apart.
And Lynne and Alan barely talking, could Markman's method really help our couples? What I try to help these couples do is to help them talk about fighting.
Conflicts are inevitable, we need to talk about them but we need to do this and this is the whole key - safely.
One of the things that you're going to need to do is to try to, together, weight the, to deal with the affair and put it behind you.
Is that something that you both would want to do? Definitely if it saves the marriage.
Yeah.
And it's a way forward.
The way I want the two of you to be managing conflict from this point on is to only talk about issues when you both say "OK we're going to have a discussion now is this a good time?".
And I'm uh, in fact, going to suggest that you have a weekly meeting to talk about your conflicts and that's the only time that you talk about them.
One of the best things that uh a couple who's feeling distant can do is to reach and just hold your partner's hand.
Do you feel comfortable reaching out and holding Hayley's hand right now? Hold it, you're not holding hands any more.
Terrific.
Too often people take the relationship for granted.
They don't invest in going out on a date or talking as friends.
I'd like to suggest to the two of you having a date night.
- Is that something you an agree to do? - Yes.
Can I get you to agree to that? Lynn'll be delighted.
I'll be delighted.
OK terrific.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
Try and go away and work on things that we've been sort of asked to do.
Uh this'll work as long as we're committed to it.
Alan and Lynne are going to have more challenges ahead.
It's not to say that Jay and Hayley don't have some danger signs.
They have some escalation and withdrawal.
But with Lynne and Alan if they really decide to do their part - as they move forward they have the opportunity to have the second half of their marriage be significantly better than the first if that's what they want.
Disagreements are inevitable.
The key to Markman's method is to stop couples fighting destructively.
But not everyone has to learn the hard way.
OK wait a minute.
I'm busy I'm doing something.
- Do we argue? - All the time.
Well I'd say.
There's never a day goes by.
Always.
Never a day goes by.
If she says that happened, I will say no, automatically we argue about it.
I don't take any notice of it.
It, it.
I'll, I'll say to him I'd like to do so and so - he'll say to me "not bloody likely".
Excuse my language.
Oh not bloody likely.
And.
And, and ten minutes later we're doing it.
And he's done it.
Of course we argue, arguments.
- Oh plenty of arguments.
- Not really.
If we have a row.
Its many years since we've had a row.
It has to be a, a good reason for it.
Come on Mill, the avocado's getting cold.
For some couples cutting out the rows comes naturally.
For others it takes work.
In Markman's programme the next task is having fun.
Friday night is date night.
OK what I need you to, to do is to gel with each other.
Yes.
OK.
Life is just a dance ha ha ha.
Tell you what we're going to do, we're going to do the first three moves.
We're going to do the mamba.
Cucaracha, and the open step.
And stop.
We have to be here, how did we get from.
Don't worry about it, trust me, I'll take you through it.
Oh that's a bit fast isn't it? We to start.
Can we start any time.
OK.
Do you want, start any time so? So it's.
One two.
No we're, we're doing this.
Oh well that's not, OK.
Going to count you in and one, two, three four, six, seven.
One, two, three, five, six, seven and one, two, three, four, five, six and one, two, three, four, five, six.
My legs are all over the place.
Three step.
Five, six, seven.
One.
Rumba I've lost it completely.
Um OK.
It's just the speed, it's.
Do you want to do it again? Because we, it's like anything else when you think about it you can't do it.
It's like driving a car for the first time.
When you're looking at al the sticks and the gears and the brakes and everything.
Breath, smile, feel the music, this is a very.
Recording.
It sort of came to me qu, really sort out of the blue that uh that uh really and truly I haven't felt at all relaxed uh in Alan's company um on the Friday night and um worse than that um I'm find it, it would seem that I'm becoming increasingly um unrelaxed in his company.
On an everyday basis.
One week after seeing Markman for Lynne and Alan the programme seemed to be creating as many problems as it was solving.
Hayley and Jay were still living apart but slowly spending more time together and for them Howard Markman's rules did seem to be getting results.
Uh we've spoken a lot more and it has been more, more open I suppose.
Jay's just left um it's Monday.
I didn't really want him to go.
Finding it really, really hard tonight.
Sort of leaving her um.
I have to keep kind of stopping him from going, I want him to stay.
My heart wants him to stay.
My mind keeps saying well you've got to go.
For both couples there was clearly more of Markman's method to take on board.
'Cos I think a lot of the conflict between us.
Is due to total discommunication and misunderstanding.
I - am not saying what I feel, I believe, because I don't feel um that I can say it.
Um without fear of conflict.
You accuse me of arguing.
And what I would say is not, not - it's not arguing it's having a difference of opinion.
In my opinion it's important that I can express freely, without fear of ummmmm - uh ridicule or disagreement.
I believe from what has been said we are both not expressing ourselves openly and honestly for fear of upsetting one another.
I must not be frightened any more of saying what I think.
And I think I've always been a bit scared about um, letting off steam.
With Alan uh because I've been scared of the consequences.
But if the relationship is to continue um - then we have to - to communicate as effectively as we have been doing in the last couple of weeks.
- Have a good day.
- You too.
Bye, see you later love.
Days are different.
So, you know the last sort of six days have been very, very good.
Uh but then again you take one day at a time.
Three weeks ago I, I didn't even know where I'd be in the future, three weeks ago.
I thought that I uh didn't have a future.
And now I've got more, I've got a lot of hope for the future now.
I don't want to ask her if I can move back in.
I want her to ask me to move back in so then I know sort of her timing's right and I'm not putting any pressure on her.
Uh I don't know what's stopping me from saying the next step, just, I don't know what's stopping me.
Maybe date night would help them take the final step.
Yeah I can't imagine sort of anything better, I love her so much that it actually hurts.
She is my life and she is my everything and, you know, I don't want to be with anybody else, I want Hayley.
Know the feeling you get when you first meet someone and it's, you like you get that stomach thing, everyone gets it don't they - like you.
It's like I'll, I'll be sitting there and I'll remember how much I love him and how much he loves me and then my stomach'll go.
After six long weeks on Markman's programme it was time for our couples to revisit him for one last session.
And despite their initial troubles both couples seem to have made amazing progress.
What's the process been like? Has it been worth it? The process has been um - um - uneven.
It's um, I but I think we have managed to keep uh quite a lot of the conflict out of the relationship.
Because of the things that we learned.
So it's been tough, there's been some up and downs as you said but you're moving in the right direction.
It's been working.
Well we're three rungs up a twenty run ladder.
But we're on the ladder, that's the main thing, we're on the process and uh it's only through our own determination to, as you said earlier on, if we're determined to make it happen we can make it happen.
I think it's a good thing.
It's a good thing you're doing, you're courageous.
What happened is sort of it - it happened um - but it's not until you start pulling away from someone and losing someone to realise of how much you know that I do love Hayley and want to be with Hayley for the rest of my life.
I always would have said before - the time he cheated on me that I would never have him back, ever.
I never would have thought I would have been able to over, overcome this.
So I think that's what's been useful to me to making - realising that, that - how special love is.
And I, I, I feel that you're back on track.
Two days after seeing Markman Hayley called Jay to a special conflict meeting.
So if I said to you uh, if you can live with the bits like that and if, uh and, and me being a little bit like that and I said to you "right, I might be like that sometimes" if you could put up me like that would you come back? You know I would.
So will you come back home then? Of course I will.
Get my stuff.
This to my bedroom for the last two months.
It's time to go home.
It's wonderful - that beginning is wonderful, that excitement, that, that excitement must fade uh somewhat.
It cannot keep at that pace and that in my opinion is when true love sets in.
When the infatuation, when you.
When you tu.
Infatuation more or less slows down.
That's when the love comes in.
That's when love comes in.
And if you're sensible that is where you begin to create what should be a good marriage.
It's nice being back as a family.
Hope to be able to keep it up.
I will commit to making a conscious effort not to belittle your opinion, whatever it may be.
But to respect that opinion.
And I will make the same commitment.
Deal OK.