From “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” from John Gottman
Intro to 7 Principles of Making Marriage Work.
“in their day-to-day lives, they have hit upon a dynamic that keeps their negative thoughts and feelings about each other (which all couples have) from overwhelming their positive ones. Rather than creating a climate of disagreement and resistance, they embrace each other’s needs. When addressing a partner’s request, their motto tends to be a helpful “Yes, and …” rather than “Yes, but …” This positive attitude not only allows them to maintain but also to increase the sense of romance, play, fun, adventure, and learning together that are at the heart of any long-lasting love affair. They have what I call an emotionally intelligent marriage.” (p. 4)
“When most couples find themselves in a conflict (whether it gets played out as a short spat, an all-out screaming match, or stony silence), they each gird themselves to win the fight. They become so focused on how hurt they feel, on proving that they’re right and their spouse is wrong, or on keeping up a cold shoulder, that the lines of communication may be overcome by static or shut down altogether. So it seems to make sense that calmly and lovingly listening to each other’s perspective would lead couples to find solutions and regain their marital composure.” (p. 11)
“The most common method recommended for resolving conflict—used in one guise or another by most marital therapists—is called active listening. For example, a therapist might urge you to try some form of the listener-speaker exchange. Let’s say Rick is upset that Judy works late most nights. The therapist asks Rick to state his complaints as “I” statements that focus on what he’s feeling rather than hurling accusations at Judy. Rick will say, “I feel lonely and overwhelmed when I’m home alone with the kids at night while you’re working late,” rather than, “It’s so selfish of you to always work late and expect me to take care of the kids by myself.”
“Next, Judy is asked to paraphrase both the content and the feelings of Rick’s message, and to check with him if she’s got it right. (This shows she is actively listening to him.) She is also asked to validate his feelings—to let him know she considers them legitimate, that she respects and empathizes with him even if she doesn’t share his perspective. She might say, “It must be hard for you to watch the kids by yourself when I’m working late.” Judy is being asked to suspend judgment, not argue for her point of view, and to respond nondefensively. “I hear you” is a common active-listening buzzword. “I feel your pain” may be the most memorable.”
“By forcing couples to see their differences from each other’s perspective, problem solving is supposed to take place without anger. This approach is often recommended whatever the specific issue—whether your conflict concerns the size of your grocery bill or major differences in your life goals. Conflict resolution is touted not only as a cure-all for troubled marriages but as a tonic that can prevent good marriages from faltering.”
“Where did this approach come from? The pioneers of marital therapy adapted it from techniques used by the renowned psychotherapist Carl Rogers for individual psychotherapy. Rogerian psychotherapy had its heyday in the 1960s and is still practiced in varying degrees today. His approach entails responding in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner to all feelings and thoughts the patient expresses.”
“For example, if the patient says, “I just hate my wife, she’s such a nagging bitch,” the therapist nods and says something like, “I hear you saying your wife nags you and you hate that.” The goal is to create an empathetic environment so the patient feels safe exploring inner thoughts and emotions and confiding in the therapist. Since marriage is also, ideally, a relationship in which people feel safe being themselves, it makes sense to train couples in this sort of unconditional understanding. Conflict resolution is certainly easier if each party expresses empathy for the other’s perspective. The problem is that therapy that focuses solely on active listening and conflict resolution doesn’t work. A Munich-based marital therapy study conducted by Kurt Hahlweg and associates found that even after employing active-listening techniques the typical couple was still distressed. Those few couples who did benefit relapsed within a year.” (p. 11)
“Judy might do her best to listen thoughtfully to Rick’s complaints. But she is not a therapist listening to a patient whine about a third party. The person her husband is trashing behind all of those “I” statements is her! There are some people who can be magnanimous in the face of such criticism—the Dalai Lama comes to mind. But it’s unlikely that you or your spouse is married to one of them. (Even in Rogerian therapy, when the client starts complaining about the therapist, the therapist switches from empathy to other therapeutic approaches.) Active listening asks couples to perform Olympic-level emotional gymnastics even if their relationship can barely walk.” (p. 13)
“But here’s the catch: even if they do make your fights “better” or less frequent, these strategies are not enough to save your marriage. You need all Seven Principles.“
“One of the most startling findings of our research is that couples who have maintained happy marriages rarely do anything that even partly resembles active listening when they’re upset.” (p. 14).
“But needing to keep a running tally of who has done what for whom is really a sign of trouble in a marriage. Among happy spouses, one doesn’t load the dishwasher just as payback because the other cooked but out of overall positive feelings about the partner and relationship. If you find yourself keeping score about some issue with your spouse, that suggests it’s an area of tension in your marriage.” (p. 17)
“Couples simply have different styles of conflict. Some avoid fights at all costs, some argue a lot, and some are able to talk out their differences and find a compromise without ever raising their voices. No one style is necessarily better than another—as long as the style works for both people.” (p. 18)
“It soon became apparent that these happy marriages were never perfect unions. Some couples who said they were very satisfied with each other still had significant differences in temperament, interests, and family values. Conflict was not infrequent. They argued, just as the unhappy couples did, over money, jobs, kids, housekeeping, sex, and in-laws. The mystery was how they so adroitly navigated their way through these difficulties and kept their marriages happy and stable.” (p. 20)
“No two marriages are the same, but the more closely my research team and I looked at happy marriages, the more evident it became that they were alike in seven telltale ways. Happily married couples may not be aware that they follow these Seven Principles, but they all do. Unhappy marriages always came up short in at least one of these seven areas—and usually in many of them. By mastering these Seven Principles, you can ensure that your own marriage will thrive.” (p. 21)
“At the heart of the Seven Principles approach is the simple truth that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. These couples tend to know each other intimately—they are well versed in each other’s likes, dislikes, personality quirks, hopes, and dreams. They have an abiding regard for each other and express this fondness not just in the big ways but through small gestures day in and day out.”
“Take the case of hardworking Nathaniel, who is employed by an import business and works very long hours. In another marriage, his schedule might be a major liability. But he and his wife, Olivia, have found ways to stay connected. They talk or text frequently throughout the day. When she has a doctor’s appointment, he remembers to call to see how it went. When he has a meeting with an important client, she’ll check in to see how it fared. When they have chicken for dinner, she gives him drumsticks because she knows he likes them best. When he makes blueberry pancakes for the kids on Saturday morning, he’ll leave the blueberries out of hers because he knows she doesn’t like them. Although he’s not religious, he accompanies her to church each Sunday because it’s important to her. And although she’s not crazy about spending a lot of time with their relatives, she has pursued a friendship with Nathaniel’s mother and sisters because family matters so much to him. If all of this sounds humdrum and unromantic, it’s anything but. In small but important ways, Olivia and Nathaniel are maintaining the friendship that is the foundation of their love.”
“As a result, they have a marriage that is far more passionate than do couples who punctuate their lives together with romantic vacations and lavish anniversary gifts but have fallen out of touch in their daily lives. Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse. Because Nathaniel and Olivia have kept their friendship strong despite the inevitable disagreements and irritations of married life, they are experiencing what is known technically as “positive sentiment override,” or PSO, a concept first proposed by University of Oregon psychologist Robert Weiss. This means that their positive thoughts about each other and their marriage are so pervasive that they tend to supersede their negative feelings. It takes a much more significant conflict for them to lose their equilibrium as a couple than it would otherwise. Their positivity causes them to feel optimistic about each other and their marriage, to have positive expectations about their lives together, and to give each other the benefit of the doubt.” (p. 21)
“That’s good news because it means partners don’t have to achieve a perfect relationship to succeed at love. The key is learning how to better attune to each other and make friendship a top priority.” (p 26)
“In our research, we have a technical name for what Olivia and Nathaniel are doing. We say they are using a repair attempt. This term refers to any statement or action—silly or otherwise—that prevents negativity from escalating out of control. Repair attempts are a secret weapon of emotionally intelligent couples—even though many of these couples aren’t aware that they are employing something so powerful.” (p. 27)
“In the strongest marriages, husband and wife share a deep sense of meaning. They don’t just “get along”—they also support each other’s hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose into their lives together.” (p. 28)
“Once you understand this, you will be ready to accept one of the most surprising truths about marriage: most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict—and to learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other. Only then will they be able to build shared meaning and a sense of purpose into their marriage.” (p. 28)
“When a discussion leads off this way—with criticism and/or sarcasm, which is a form of contempt—it has begun with a “harsh start-up.” Although Dara talks to Oliver in a very soft, quiet voice, there’s a load of negative power in her words. After hearing the first minute or so of their conversation, it’s no surprise to me that by the end Dara and Oliver haven’t resolved their differences at all. The research shows that if your discussion begins with a harsh start-up, it will inevitably end on a negative note, even if there are a lot of attempts to “make nice” in between. Statistics tell the story: 96 percent of the time you can predict the outcome of a conversation based on the first three minutes of the fifteen-minute interaction! A harsh start-up simply dooms you to failure. So if you begin a discussion that way, you might as well pull the plug, take a breather, and start over.” (p.32)