Peter McFadden, who lives in Cold Spring, is a relationship coach. He will talk about the science behind his work at Beahive Beacon at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday (Nov. 19).
How did you get into this field?
For three years, I worked at the U.S. State Department. I was a specialist in nuclear arms control. I took a random trip to communist East Europe, helped someone defect from Czechoslovakia and founded a nonprofit in Prague. I lived eight years in the Czech and Slovak Republic. Under communism, it had been illegal to gather in public. People lived in fear. It was so quiet. People didn’t talk to their neighbors. They thought their neighbors were the secret police. I ended up organizing the world’s largest dance, the Super Macarena [with 67,000 Slovakians] to get people to talk to each other. I became a little bit of a celebrity in the tiny country and was invited to meet Pope John Paul II.
You met the pope?
The meeting is a big part of this! As a young priest, he was a popular professor of philosophy. He ended up being a relationship counselor to over 2,000 of his students and wrote a philosophical book about the deeper purpose of love, romance and marriage. I grew up with such a simple vision of marriage: You become a good person, meet a good person, live happily ever after. Then my brother’s wife threw a frying pan at him. My brother’s a good guy: hard-working, faithful, doesn’t drink. I remember thinking, “If he can get a frying pan thrown at him, I could get one thrown at me.” But after meeting the pope and reading his book, I figured I was ready for marriage.
Coincidentally, at this time, I met the woman who became my wife. I learned that man can’t live on philosophy alone. You must communicate! My wife and I struggled early in our marriage. Then the church where we got married said, “You met the pope and read his book about marriage — how would you like to take over our marriage preparation program?” My reaction was, “I’m the last person who should be speaking to engaged couples right now.” Then it dawned on me: The best way to learn something is to teach it. So we started teaching marriage preparation together in a desperate attempt to figure out marriage for ourselves. And now I’ve helped over 5,700 couples in the past 20 years.
What did you learn at the State Department that factors into this?
Diplomacy. So many couples go to war. In diplomacy, you learn that while criticism is usually accurate, it’s almost never helpful. You have to make the criticism constructive.
What is the biggest indicator of a happy marriage?
The ratio of positive to negative interactions. When positive interactions are high, you’re quick to forgive each other. The single biggest mistake couples make is not enough positivity. We just get too comfortable, too busy, too tired. People admit they’ve gone 20 years without saying thank you or 30 years without a date. They didn’t realize it until I asked. It’s the absence of positive interactions, not the presence of negative, that undermines marriages. Having a shared calendar helps.
How does a shared calendar help?
Chaos is a leading cause of divorce. The shared calendar helps limit frustration. It’s also an objective record of how you’re spending your time. I give my couples an exercise creating a shared vision and marriage. Write down everything that makes you happy. As one small example, my wife and I love theater, but we realized we weren’t going to the theater. We made a commitment to go to the theater together once every two months. The calendar is a huge part of limiting negativity and making sure positivity is high.
