John gottman relationship
The Gottman Method - About
For Professionals:
For therapists, life coaches, counselors, educators, clergy, trainers, and other mental health and well-being professionals, the Gottman Method is an approach to couples therapy that includes a thorough assessment of the couple’s relationship, and integrates research-based interventions based on the Sound Relationship House Theory. The goals of Gottman Method Couples Therapy are to disarm conflicting verbal communication; increase intimacy, respect, and affection; remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy; and create a heightened sense of empathy and understanding within the context of the relationship.
Learn more about Gottman Method Couples Therapy here. Most of our CE courses and certification in Gottman Method Couples Therapy are also relevant in non-clinical settings for other professionals who work with couples.
Click here to sign up to our Gottman Pro Newsletter for clinical professionals and receive updates on trainings, new courses, professional opportunities, and resources to help you dig deeper into Gottman Method Couples Therapy.
See The Gottman Method in action and learn ways to apply it with your couples in practice with the Art and Science of Love.
For Couples:
Looking for tools to help improve your relationship? The Gottman Relationship Adviser, the world’s first complete relationship wellness tool for couples, takes the guesswork out of improving your relationship. Measure your relationship health with a research-based self-assessment, then receive a tailored digital relationship plan proven to heal and strengthen your connection.
For an in-depth analysis of your relationship health, check out the Gottman Assessment, a virtual relationship evaluation tool for couples.
Check out the free relationship quiz for couples.
Video: Drs.
John and Julie Gottman talking about the Gottman Method Gottman Method Couples Therapy
Couples who enter into Gottman Method Couples Therapy begin with an assessment process that then informs the therapeutic framework and intervention.
Assessment
A conjoint session, followed by individual interviews with each partner are conducted. Couples complete questionnaires and then receive detailed feedback on their relationship.
Check out the online assessment tool the Gottman Relationship Checkup. Created by Drs. John and Julie Gottman, Affective Software, Inc., and The Gottman Institute, this online couples assessment tool automatically scores a relationship’s strengths and challenges and provides specific recommendations for intervention.
Therapeutic Framework
The couple and therapist decide on the frequency and duration of the sessions.
Therapeutic Interventions
Interventions are designed to help couples strengthen their relationships in three primary areas: friendship, conflict management, and creation of shared meaning.
Couples learn to replace negative conflict patterns with positive interactions and to repair past hurts. Interventions designed to increase closeness and intimacy are used to improve friendship, deepen emotional connection, and create changes which enhances the couples shared goals. Relapse prevention is also addressed.
Drs. John and Julie Gottman developed nine components of healthy relationships known as The Sound Relationship House Theory.
Build Love Maps
How well do you know your partner’s inner psychological world, his or her history, worries, stresses, joys, and hopes?
Share Fondness and Admiration
The antidote for contempt, this level focuses on the amount of affection and respect within a relationship. (To strengthen fondness and admiration, express appreciation and respect.)
Turn Towards Instead of Away
State your needs, be aware of bids for connection and respond to (turn towards) them.
The small moments of everyday life are actually the building blocks of relationship.
The Positive Perspective
The presence of a positive approach to problem-solving and the success of repair attempts.
Manage Conflict
We say “manage” conflict rather than “resolve” conflict, because relationship conflict is natural and has functional, positive aspects. Understand that there is a critical difference in handling perpetual problems and solvable problems.
Make Life Dreams Come True
Create an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly about his or her hopes, values, convictions and aspirations.
Create Shared Meaning
Understand important visions, narratives, myths, and metaphors about your relationship.
Trust
This is the state that occurs when a person knows that his or her partner acts and thinks to maximize that person’s best interests and benefits, not just the partner’s own interests and benefits.
In other words, this means, “my partner has my back and is there for me.”
Commitment
This means believing (and acting on the belief) that your relationship with this person is completely your lifelong journey, for better or for worse (meaning that if it gets worse you will both work to improve it). It implies cherishing your partner’s positive qualities and nurturing gratitude by comparing the partner favorably with real or imagined others, rather than trashing the partner by magnifying negative qualities, and nurturing resentment by comparing unfavorably with real or imagined others.
Who Can Benefit from the Gottman Method?
In his New York Times bestselling book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. John Gottman writes, “Although you may feel your situation is unique, we have found that all marital conflicts fall into two categories: Either they can be resolved, or they are perpetual, which means they will be part of your lives forever, in some form or another.
” Gottman says that 69% of marital conflicts are perpetual problems, and these are of particular focus in much of the work performed by Gottman-trained therapists.
The Gottman Method is designed to support couples across all economic, racial, sexual orientation, and cultural sectors. Outcome research has shown Gottman Method Couples Therapy to be effective for treating same-sex relationships.
Some of the relationship issues that may be addressed in therapy include:
- Frequent conflict and arguments
- Poor communication
- Emotionally distanced couples on the verge of separation
- Specific problems such as sexual difficulties, infidelity, money, and parenting
Even couples with “normal” levels of conflict may benefit from the Gottman Method Couples Therapy. Gottman-trained therapists aim to help couples build stronger relationships overall and healthier ways to cope with issues as they arise in the future. You can find a Gottman-trained therapist on the Gottman Referral Network.
Lessons on Regret for a Marriage in Crisis
When left untended, marital problems eventually become a Gordian knot.
No crystal ball can guide us when we sit on hope’s edge, contemplating our marriage’s fate. But the research on regret affords us a compass.
No crystal ball can guide us when we sit on hope’s edge, contemplating our marriage’s fate. But the research on regret affords us a compass.
IMAGINE HOLDING A crystal ball that could reveal your marriage’s fate in ten, fifteen, or twenty years. Picture yourself gazing into the smokey orb while asking a series of questions: Will I be happy if I stay? Will my problems follow me if I leave? Is our marriage doomed to contempt, devoid of kindness, and forever riddled with blame no matter what we do?
At their core, such questions deal with regret and how it pertains to a relationship in crisis. They seek to discern the cost of taking action versus staying put. They are powerful because they poke at our hopes, fears, and, most importantly, the unknowable.
As a relationship expert, I suspect the fear of regret informs our decision to stay or leave an ailing marriage and influences our willingness to risk. Marital strife is a tempest of confusing emotions. We can feel utterly paralyzed or steeped in self-righteous indignation. We can hover on hope’s edge but opt to no longer risk connection. We can feel tired and defeated. If children are involved, the stakes are exceptionally high, and so, understandably, we can (also) feel conflicted. Whether to end one’s marriage is arguably one of the most challenging decisions many of us will make in our lifetime. The ramifications of staying versus leaving loom large, and it is normal to feel paralyzed. So I wonder, what can regret psychology teach us about marital crossroads where we contemplate severing a marriage and dissolving our vows? More pointedly, when we envision our future selves leaving our marriage once the kids are grown or signing on for the long haul despite years of gridlock or a lack of intimacy, might these contemplations have a ripple effect? Maybe imagining our future selves in potentially regretful scenarios causes us to dress-rehearse for tragedy and sets the stage for self-fulfilling prophecies that ultimately lead us asunder.
Maybe imagining we have few options and fearing we are inherently unlovable commits us to a cozy yet banal existence?
When we distill it down, the question seems simple: Will taking action in my relationship cause it to change for the better or worse? But here is the rub, what is taking action? Is staying in an unhappy marriage and choosing to work on your relationship action? Is leaving your marriage action? What about doing nothing? Is that a case where non-action is a form of action in itself?
When left untended, marital problems eventually become a Gordian knot. The moments where we can successfully minister to our partner’s feelings with a few kind words, a hug, or a gesture of kindness become increasingly rare, complicated, and ineffective. For seemingly inexplicable reasons, healing from past hurts or recalling fond memories feels impossible. So, (understandably), we begin to believe that healing our marriage is not attainable, that the relationship has gone bad, and that maybe it is better to part ways—to spare our partner of oneself or oneself of one’s partner.
This is the land of negative sentiment override (NSO), a term coined by Dr. John Gottman, which speaks to the tendency toward viewing our partner and the history of our relationship through a darkened lens. It is a symptom as much as a state. Characterized by a loss of hope, our memories, once imbued with fondness, get recast in our mind’s eye and become concealed by gloom.
NSO is, in essence, a cumulative byproduct of missed opportunities for connection: sliding door moments, where we turn away (and against) junctures that necessitated our care and presence—we neglect to ask about the biopsy, forget to say we’ll be late, or dismiss the melancholy expression on our partner’s face—again and again. If you are here, you are likely exhausted, lonely, and wondering if relationships are supposed to be this much work. You may even be tempted to deal with your marital gridlock decisively and with force. The big red button called DIVORCE is flashing in your mind’s eye, and your fingertip is quivering.
Most of us manage to abstain (until we don’t) from pushing that button. After all, it is far easier to remain in a known hell than to venture into unknown heaven. Intuitively, we sense that shaking up the status quo involves taking risks, and risk almost always equals uncertainty—which our brains are wired to loathe—so we bide our time.
To complicate matters, relationships can appear to pivot from acceptable to not overnight, leaving a relatively short window of opportunity between commitment and filing for divorce. According to Gottman’s research, the average couple waits six years from the onset of a problem to initiate couples therapy, and half of the marriages that end in divorce do so within the first seven years. It seems hindsight is where we recognize that all the signs were there: that gut feeling we chose to ignore, the comment we swept under the rug. A relationship has its seasons, and I am talking about the cusp of autumn—the time of year when we have an almost preternaturally-like ability to sense the shift in seasons.
Before we glimpse that first gold leaf contrasted against a field of green, nature whispers that change is coming, and we feel it in our bones. It is what Joan Didion speaks to in her memoir, Blue Nights—the gloaming, a window when the days shimmer brightly and, at the same time, begin to dwindle so subtly that we do not see the harbinger of what is yet to come. Winter.
Relationships are like that. We miss the rising water, the sea change on the horizon, and the cusp of catastrophe just beyond. By the time we sense trouble, we are submerged, drowning. Research on the psychology of regret shows that most of us suppress, distort, and quash many of our daily regrets without ever even realizing them. What remains (and continues to haunt us) is a smaller subset of regrets, which has me wondering if the quashing of regret goes hand-in-hand with an allergy to hope. Perhaps we cannot feel disappointed if we never dare to dream, so we silently relinquish our dreams and wash our hands of hope.
We make deals in dimly lit alleyways, our subconscious momentarily appeased. We sign the dotted line and remain in marriages that are lifeless but inhabitable. So, I ask you this: what would it feel like to hope?
In our culture, we tend to think that a life well-lived is a life brimming with choice. All we need do is search on Amazon for shampoo to discover a staggering array of options. Similarly, this illusion of abundance applies to humans. Online dating sites seem to intuit a plethora of perfect matches, social media platforms entice us with fleeting connections, and professional networking sites purport myriad ways we can increase our status and clout. But the research on regret claims otherwise. It asserts there is an underbelly to perceiving our options as limitless. It contends that having many choices comes at a cost, something researchers Roese and Summerville (2005) coined the Opportunity Principle.
In What We Regret Most—and Why the authors assert that our feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment are most significant when we believe we had opportunities to take corrective action and do things differently but passed.
In other words, we find ourselves at life’s critical junctures—moments when we can play it safe or take a chance, and overwhelmingly, the research suggests we are filled with regret when we believe we could have taken a different path but opted out. It is an unsettling idea; the notion that it is not the knockdown, drag-out fights, or even an affair that ruptures a relationship. Instead, invisible forces conspire—all the words never said, the gestures never made, the moments we quietly turned away—each accumulates into a montage of memories littered with regret.
This is the power of the road not taken—the birthplace of remorse. It hints at the notion that merely believing we have few options results in our playing it safe and maintaining the status quo. To assert one’s disappointments or draw boundaries with a belligerent spouse; to cease being codependent and stop enabling an addicted partner; to risk showing sadness when we habitually default to anger or shutting down requires a belief in something more.
That belief might be in one’s inherent lovability, warts, and all. It might manifest as gentle acceptance and quiet humility, trusting in forces bigger and more significant than oneself. Whatever it is, there is no denying that it is damn hard to muster. We are naturally cautionary creatures inhabiting a culture that promotes scarcity and abundance. How do we rally courage when we live in a world where a new mate, better shampoo, or more meaningful career are just a mouse click away and yet remain eternally elusive?
Implicit in the opportunity principle is the assertion that we are in a double bind regarding our heart’s affairs. On the one hand, believing we have options and are worthy of love and belonging—at its best—can spur us to take action, like insisting that a negligent partner give us equal regard, accept influence, and lose their contempt. To paraphrase Brené Brown, when we arrive at a place where we understand that love and belonging—our worthiness—is a birthright and not something we have to earn, anything is possible.
Yet, on the other hand, some of us default to a crisis of commitment prematurely; we chronically threaten the relationship; carry a misplaced assumption of overall blame, and have a distorted sense that abundance lies elsewhere.
In Brown’s interview with Dan Pink, author of The Power of Regret, she and Pink assert that over time, we tend to regret more what we did not do versus what we did do; that regrets of inaction are far more common than regrets of action. This aligns with the research on regret, showing it to be temporal by nature. It makes sense. Memory is not static. In life, we constantly add new information and experience to our understanding of who our partners, relationships, and selves are. Hence, our insight into the implications of our actions (and non-actions) evolves and is (a lifelong) work in progress.
Think of life as a book and its different phases as chapters. Moments, where we fail to act, are akin to missing pages and leave us grappling with something regret psychology calls counterfactual thinking.
CFT refers to our tendency to create possible alternatives to events that have already occurred. We imagine something contrary to what happened and inhabit a landscape of if-only. If only I had apologized sooner. If only I had communicated honestly or restrained from sending that text. Interestingly, CFT also correlates with shame and an absence of self-compassion, both traits that undermine empathy, connection, and living wholeheartedly.
We most commonly regret situations where we fail to be kind, courageous, and bold. The moments where we remained a bystander in the arena of life, opting to trick ourselves into believing we can pass on vulnerability—only to find ourselves facedown in the dirt of regret and the muck of if-only years later.
When sitting at the crux of an irrevocable choice, perhaps the most essential question we can ask is will we regret an action later, and if so, how might we regret it?
If this is true, perhaps the best we can do is to create a list of everything we don’t know about our future life.
Then notice what comes to mind when we envision different scenarios. Picture your seventy-five-year-old self in a decades-old relationship—a marriage identical to the one you have now. Imagine you did nothing and played it safe. What benefits and losses transpired by maintaining the status quo? Did the gains outweigh the cost? Were you courageous? Were you kind? Repeat this thought experiment by envisioning what occurred in your marriage when you ceased doing business as usual, insisted on equal regard, and ran headlong into heartbreak. Does your future self live a rich and meaningful life even if the marriage ends? Notice how each scenario makes you feel. Ask yourself what love is—what a good-enough relationship is. Is it okay to want more than good enough? Write down everything you associate with a healthy relationship and list these qualities in order of importance. Have the most meaningful aspects of love come easily to you? What does it mean to have to work on a relationship? What does it mean when the work of a relationship is letting it go?
* * *
No crystal ball can guide us when we sit on hope’s edge, contemplating our marriage’s fate.
But the research on regret affords us a compass. It cautions us of the toll incurred when we remain passive bystanders in a marriage. It emphasizes the significance of making crucial life decisions informed equally by our imagined future selves, the felt urgency of now, and the lessons from the past. It argues for the merits of balancing hindsight with foresight. More than anything, it serves as a cautionary tale concerning mistaking any moment—no matter how big—for the entirety of our story.
I suspect that a well-lived life is a life replete with regrets; we need not trick ourselves into believing otherwise. Rather, we can take a deep breath, shed the weight of no regrets, and set our sights on the lessons love continually throws our way. Because if we step away and look at the big picture—the kisses, knockdown drag-out fights, tears, and tender moments—it becomes easier to see that our marriages begin and end every day, as they always have and always will.
There are chances—to love better, love differently, and love well in life.
Of this, we can be sure.
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The NEW Gottman Relationship Adviser takes the guesswork out of improving your relationship. Measure your relationship health with a research-based self-assessment, then receive a tailored digital plan proven to heal and strengthen your connection.
Kerry Lusignan, LMHC
In addition to being a Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist and Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator, Kerry is the Founder of the Northampton Center for Couples Therapy, an evidence-informed practice that has treated over 1,500 couples since its inception in 2010. With an approach that runs the gamut from silly to serious, Kerry’s work is smart, scrappy, grounded in real life, and, most importantly, kind. She wholeheartedly believes that freedom and joy are just around the corner once we make peace with heartache and invites you to join her in loving well.
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Secret of happy love | PSYCHOLOGIES
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Man and woman
By observing how a couple communicates with each other, psychologist John Gottman can predict with almost one hundred percent probability whether they will be happy together years later or if their relationship has no future. It sounds incredible, but Gottman has 40 years of scientific research behind him.
“Happy couples first of all see the positive in each other, something for which you can say “thank you”, hug and just be glad that life has brought together such a wonderful person,” says Gottman. “They purposefully build relationships on respect and gratitude. Unhappy couples, on the contrary, are constantly looking for something to complain about in a partner, catching his or her every mistake.
Gottman and his wife Julie, also a psychologist, are among the world's most famous marriage experts.
Over decades, they have counseled thousands of couples and conducted hundreds of experiments to discover the secret to a happy marriage.
Gottman's most interesting experiment was called "Laboratory of Love". The newlyweds were invited to the laboratory, electrodes were connected to them and asked to tell about the history of their relationship - how they met, what caused the most terrible quarrel, what happy events of their life together were most remembered. The researchers observed how they communicated with each other, and the electrodes measured the blood flow, heart rate and other physiological reactions of the participants. Then the newlyweds were sent home, and after six years they were contacted again to find out if they were still together or not.
Based on the collected data, Gottman divided couples into two large groups: happy and unhappy. The first managed to maintain a happy marriage after six years. The second either parted, or lived together, but suffered together.
When the researchers analyzed the data, they saw a clear difference between the first and second groups.
Studies show that kindness is the most important indicator of marital stability.
Future unhappy couples seemed calm when talking about their relationship, but their body reactions, measured by electrodes, said otherwise. Hearts were beating fast, they were sweating, the blood flow was fast. By all indications, their bodies were operating in a primal fear-fight-or-flight response.
Their body reacted to closeness and simple conversation with a loved one as if it were face to face with a saber-toothed tiger. Even when they talked about pleasant or insignificant things in their relationship, they expected an attack from a partner or prepared to attack themselves. Gottman discovered a pattern: the more actively the bodies of partners in the laboratory reacted, the faster their relationship collapsed over time.
Couples who maintained a happy marriage after six years, on the contrary, showed low physiological tension from the very beginning. They felt calm and confident together, which was expressed in a careful, loving attitude towards a partner, even during a quarrel. The point is not that they have a better physiology, Gottman believes, but that they know how to create an atmosphere of trust, warmth and love for each other. But how do they do it?
As Gottman found, the main reason for divorce is contempt and neglect of a partner. Those of us who look for the slightest reason to criticize and are not accustomed to respectfully respond to the requests of a partner miss 50% of the positive things that are done for them and see the negative where there is none. They kill not only love, but literally their beloved / beloved - constant criticism from significant people weakens our immunity, the ability to fight viruses and oncology. Anger and indifference mean the death of relationships.
On the contrary, kindness, cordiality, tenderness and attentiveness incredibly increase affection for each other, and over the years it only grows stronger. Research shows that kindness is the single most important predictor of marital stability. A good attitude gives us the opportunity to feel loved - we are understood, appreciated, taken care of.
However, one should not think of kindness as a given character trait once and for all: you either have it or you don't. In fact, Gottman explains, kindness is like a muscle—the more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. Relationships need to be worked on so that they are always in shape - this is exactly what loving couples do.
Of course, the most difficult time to be kind is during quarrels and conflicts, but this is also the most important time for being kind. When we experience a fall, our family should be a soft featherbed into which we are not afraid to fall. It is very easy to ruin a relationship with bad words.
A Powerful Tool to Strengthen Relationships - Sharing Your Partner's Joy
“Being kind doesn't mean we have to hide our anger,” explains Julie Gottman. Rather, kindness suggests how best to express it. Instead of showering insults on your partner, you can explain why you are hurting and angry. For example, instead of “What’s the matter with you, I’m late again! Your spitting mother!" you can say, "I hate to say this and I know it's not your fault, but it really pisses me off that you're late again."
It's not about gifts like a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates, although they are good from time to time, but about how we communicate with each other every day. One way to practice being kind to each other is to actively look for reasons to thank your loved one for something during the day and not focus on the negative (“Dirty dishes!” “Late again!”) made a mistake. For example, an angry wife may decide that her husband didn't raise the toilet seat on purpose to annoy her, but in fact he simply forgot about it.
Another powerful way to strengthen relationships is to share the joy of a partner. The problem with unhappy couples is often that they are unable to be happy for each other. “Imagine, I got promoted!” “Uh-huh, great, I have to run.” Being together and sharing the joy, success of a loved one is just as important as being close in times of trial.
Text: Ksenia Tatarnikova Photo Source: Getty Images
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All happy families are equally happy...
Who is this book for and why is it important for a family coach to get to know it?
The book may be of interest to couples whose relationships want to invigorate, refresh, tune in to a long happy continuation. In addition, the author emphasizes that Emotional Intelligence can save a couple from divorce or from an unhappy marriage. And this book will help couples who are on the verge of leaving a relationship to get on the path to rekindling relationships. For those who are on their way to a happy relationship, this book can become a kind of guidebook, a guide to emotionally healthy relationships. As if you can imagine 10 out of 10, and what kind of relationship will bring joy, understanding and development? The reader can refer to the numerous tests and exercises within the book, creating an image of the desired relationship filled with meaning and emotional closeness. And of course, I recommend this book to family coaches.
Readers will find interesting couples-supporting questions, ideas for coaching sessions, and positive practices for couples after talking with a coach.
What other books by John Gottman deserve the attention of a family coach?
This is not the first book of the author, published in Russian. Previously published was The Love Map, a favorite of family coaches, and a new book, 8 Important Dates: How to Build Relationships for Life.
What is the main feature of choosing a book to read?
I made this choice not by chance, as a family coach working in the field of positive parenting, I note that one of the secrets of strong relationships is the balance of positive and negative interactions. In happy unions, the positive always outweighs the balance of the relationship. A positive perception of relationships both in the family and in parenthood creates a powerful space of loving presence and trust. Daily positive thoughts about each other strengthen relationships.
A positive attitude is the basis of a family union. It is valuable to maintain it daily. The more positive feelings you connect with each other, the more respect and acceptance. I am very close to this approach. I would call it Positive Coaching for Families and Couples. Let's explore together the principles of happy relationships founded by John Gottman on a comprehensive, wide-ranging study of over 700 couples.
What are the 7 principles of a happy relationship?
All emotionally healthy couples, according to John Gottman, follow 7 principles. While the violation of at least one principle or several at once leads to the destruction of relations. I will formulate them for you in the form of questions.
1. How interested are you in each other's lives?
Happy spouses are first and foremost good friends whose relationship is based on respect and enjoyment of each other's company. They care for each other and express tenderness and love every day.
They know about important and significant events of each other. They explore each other's inner world as a constant process of learning, giving them intimacy and joint development.
2. How much tenderness and admiration are there in your relationship?
John Gottman believes that if tenderness and admiration are present in the relationship in the present, as well as in the memories of the past, then the family can be restored. If a couple recalls joint events with warmth and admiration, the probability of a happy future is 94%. Realizing the value of these feelings is the second principle of a happy relationship.
3. How attentive are you to each other in small things?
Attention to each other is the basis of emotional connection and support, romance and understanding. Mindfulness creates a reserve for the future, where it is possible that there will be difficult times. And it's like an airbag allows a couple to get through this period in life.
4. To what extent does a man accept female leadership in relationships?
The area of family relations is predominantly a female sphere. Giving leadership in a relationship to a woman, a man strengthens the relationship and the union. The realization of this fact makes a man a strong leader respected by a woman.
5. How well do you communicate with each other, especially when discussing problems?
This principle boils down more to showing good manners in moments of discussion and disagreement. As if you were treating your partner like a guest who, for example, made a mistake in something. Most often, people say to the guest: “It's okay! Everything is fine!". And with loved ones, if you also communicate, then what changes? I invite you to explore this principle in your life.
6. How easy is it for you to accept that you are different?
Often in a couple there can be different dreams and contradictions around desires.
The way out of this impasse is dialogue. The goal is not to force one to do what the other wants, but to find space to explore the deep need of each other's desires, realizing their meaning. Helping each other in the realization of dreams is one of the goals of the union, the author believes. Recognizing the importance of your spouse's dream is the foundation of a happy relationship.
7. What are your common goals, traditions, rituals?
If you look at your relationship as something that has a spiritual dimension, what brings you together? What is the family culture and general philosophy of your union? What are the general goals? Traditions? The answers to these questions reinforce the connection and meanings of the union. Such a joint relationship creates an atmosphere that encourages each spouse to have an honest relationship, to have an honest conversation about their values.
Where can you start today?
And at the end of the book - a gift from John Gottman - in fact conscious relationship coaching practice "The Magical Five Hours a Week" , which will strengthen relationships and take them to a new level of happiness.
