Mastering Your Marriage

Back in 1969, Darryl studying married couples back in 

Making predictions is a risky business. People have lost fortunes relying on someone else’s best guess at what things might be like in the future. But people have also lost fortunes because they didn’t believe a prediction. Just like a director from the Decca Recording Company who failed to sign a contract with the Beatles in 1962 because he didn’t like their sound and believed that guitar music was on its way out.

But what if a clinical psychologist could observe you and your spouse in the first years of your marriage and predict with an accuracy rate of more than 90 per cent whether you would stay happily together or separate and divorce?

Click or tick

Dr John Gottman commenced 

After many years of observing and recording hundreds of couples’ interactions, and then following up with them over a number of years to see whether they stayed together or divorced, Gottman claims he can now answer these questions. In fact, he claims he can predict the success or failure of a marriage after observing a couple interacting for as little as five minutes—with an accuracy rate of 90 per cent!

Gottman discovered that there were clear and observable differences in the way successful and 

The Masters and the Disasters

What do emotionally intelligent couples do successfully that the Disasters don’t seem to achieve? Gottman found that the Masters practised a number of key ways of 

1. Enhance your “love maps”

Emotionally intelligent couples 

2. Nurture your fondness and admiration

Masters of Marriage put effort and energy into nurturing their fondness and admiration for each other. 

Gottman discovered that fondness and admiration are two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance. Successful couples might at times feel driven to distraction by their partner’s personality flaws, but they still feel that the person they married is worthy of their honour and respect.

He said that “having a fundamentally positive view of your spouse and your marriage is a powerful buffer when bad times hit.” When couples consistently let each other know how much they are loved and valued, they will be far less likely 

Successful couples avoid the temptation to take their partner for  

3. Turn toward each other

Gottman also noted that success

Bids can happen in the shopping centre, on the way to the movies, at the kitchen table or in the middle of a trip to the supermarket.

A wife might say, “Oh look, those 

Couples who regularly turn toward each other rather than away are depositing emotional savings in their emotional bank accounts and when times get tough, they’re able to draw on these reserves of emotional support. “Because they have stored up all this goodwill, they are better able to make allowances for each other when a conflict arises,” wrote Gottman. “They can maintain a positive sense of each other and their marriage even during hard times.”

Gottman discovered that couples who practised turning toward each other had found the key to a long- lasting romance. For him, romance is not what Hollywood typically 

When you’re at the store and your partner asks you whether there’s enough detergent at home, you dart off and get some “just in case.” You don’t stand in the aisle with a look of boredom on your face. It’s about connecting with your partner with a verbal response, a smile, a hug, anything that will let him or her know that even though the issue or topic may not be that profound or vital to survival, it is still important to you because he or she took the time to share what was on his or her mind.

Gottman’s research in the Love Lab over many years has revealed some key strategies for building a strong and vibrant marriage and his predictions as to which couples will thrive in their marriages have proven to be reliable. Couples should not only believe them; they should also put them into practise!