John Gottman's
Why Marriages Succeed Or Fail

and

The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work

"I have found that much of the conventional wisdom
- even among many marital therapists -
is misguided or dead wrong."
- John Gottman

Why Marriages Succeed or Fail
The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work
The Relationship Cure: A Five-Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships

John Gottman's work, as outlined in his books Why Marriages Succeed Or Fail, The Seven Principles Of Making Marriage Work, and most recently, Relationship Cure: A Five-Step Guide for Building Better Connections with Family, Friends and Lovers , is scientific.  What sets Gottman apart is his approach of using precise and objective measurements (subtle facial expressions, fidgets, sweat, gestures, breathing rates, heart rates . . . along the "emotional intelligence" line of thought) to develop a keen and watchfuleye for what exactly goes on in marriages that work and marriages that don't work, and to try to nail down the exact differences between them. So, what is this evidence, exactly? According to, well, Gottman,

Gottman claims, with credible evidence,
the ability to predict
with 91 percent accuracy
which people will stay married
and which will divorce.

So, here we go.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Gottman's Work

*Note: This is not a substitute for exploring Gottman's work directly. Gottman's books are full of exercises, quizzes, and in-depth explanations, so this review is only a paper-thin dig into them. We, as usual, recommend going to the source.

Here is a short summary of what he found.

Common Myths About Relationships

Like we've said, with the dizzying hurricane of misinformation and outright lies concerning the area of relationships, it's no wonder most marriages fail nowadays - especially if they go to bookstores looking for help. You're lucky to find a marriage counselor who hasn't been through three divorces themselves.

A few of the popular myths regarding marriage that Gottman disputes:

    • That neurosis or personality problems ruin marriages (they don't)
    • That common interests keep you together (they don't)
    • Avoiding conflict ruins marriages (it doesn't)
    • Affairs are the root cause of divorce (they're often a symptom, not a cause)
    • Men are not biologically built for marriage (nice try)
    • Men and women are from different planets (a knock at the competition)

The Core of the Message

"A lasting marriage results from a couple's ability to resolve the conflicts that are inevitable in any relationship."

OK, so while that might not exactly make your toes curl, hey - we're trying to be scientific here. You can learn a lot about a couple by watching how they interact, how they converse, and especially, how they fight.

How He Predicts Divorce

So, how can you learn how to predict which marriages will last, and which won't?

Watch them fight.

How individuals discuss disagreements, how they communicate overall, can tell you a lot.

In scanning for signs of a divorce looming in the future, Gottman checks for telltale signs:

    • First Sign: The Harsh Startup
      (Is the tone immediately negative, accusatory, tense?)
    • Second Sign: "The Four Horsemen"
      ("lethal negativities that can run rampant and ruin a relationship")
      Criticism (instead of complaint; Example: "What's wrong with you?")
      Contempt (sarcasm, disgust, etc)
      Defensiveness (exclusively blaming the other person, which escalates the conflict)
      Stonewalling (eventually, one partner just tunes out)
    • Third Sign: Flooding
      (The reason why people stonewall is to protect themselves from being flooded or overwhelmed by an onslaught of turbulent negativity that causes one partner to disengage emotionally, a.k.a."stonewalling.")
    • Fourth Sign: Body Language
      (In the heat of battle, hearts racing, pulses pounding - our bodies signal what's really going on)
    • Fifth Sign: Failed Repair Attempts
      (Do attempts to break the tension and make peace succeed or fail?)
    • Sixth Sign: Bad Memories
      (In happy marriages, couples tend to look back on early days and sigh happily. In less-than-happy marriages, well . . . any happy sighs have probably been replaced by grim frowns.)

Gottman's Cure

A brief, really brief sketch of the major solutions Gottman proposes to heal dissolving marriages and to preserve the strength of strong ones:

(Again, this is only a paper-thin overview; to really dig into this, our motto is, go to the source itself.)

    • Principle 1: Enhance Your "Love Maps"
      Example: At one extreme, take a husband who doesn't know what color his wife's eyes are, has lost track of how many kids they have or what their names are . . . you get the picture.

      At the other extreme, take a husband who knows that his wife loves a gentle rub on the back of the neck, really loves a phone call for no reason at all, and loooooves spending a night during the week alone together, away from the world.

      The point is simple but important: the depth and detail of each partners' "map" of the others' likes and dislikes, values and goals, the less it's a guessing game what makes the other happy.
    • Principle 2: Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration
      What do you like or love about the other person? Every relationship has positive qualities that brought the two individuals together; those qualities can either be kept alive (food, water, and sunshine where they grow lavishly) . . . or the can wither away from neglect. A good practice is to deliberately tend to and nurture them.
    • Principle 3: Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away
      "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" applies to relationships as well, not just journey of thousands of miles.
      In other words, a positive relationship, according to Gottman, is less a matter of huge, grand, sweeping gestures, but the small, everyday interactions that might seem like insignificant details. The details are all-important. Chitchat isn't just chitchat - it's a way of building and maintaining a connection of emotional engagement.
    • Principle 4: Let Your Partner Influence You
      This is an often misunderstood way of saying that both partners should have a fundamental mutual respect.
    • Principle 5: Solve Your Solvable Problems
      Some marital problems - who takes out the garbage, takes care of the kids - are solvable; others (issues about children, sex, religious faith) are more perpetual. Gottman states that you don't have to resolve your major marital conflicts for your marriage to thrive; but solving the ones that can be solved is important.
      Here he outlines well-known problem-solving strategies to help determine and overcome the problems that are solvable.
    • Principle 6: Overcome Gridlock
      Gridlock: being stuck in seemingly insolvable problems with arguments you've had a hundred times. It's the Mexican Standoff of relationships, that wastes years of our lives.
      Gottman explains that the underlying reason behind gridlock is that each partner has core underlying dreams for their life which fuel the conflict, and those dreams aren't being addressed or respected by the other.
      Gottman outlines ways to uncover the underlying cause of the gridlock.
    • Principle 7: Create Shared Meaning
      What often brings people together (well, aside from sex, money, loneliness, and convenience) is agreement about a deep way of life, sense of meaning and purpose. An important part of a marriage pact means getting the big picture straight ("What am I doing with my life, and why?") and respecting the meaning each other is living.