“The Master’s [of marriage] are repairing things effectively…they have crummy arguments, and they don’t follow communication rules, and they get defensive, and upset…but at some point…they can have a conversation where they can talk about it…repair…How can you make it better?…
We could not predict the effectiveness of the repair from the nature of the repair attempt…
What made the difference was the person receiving the repair attempt…how much emotional money they have with that person….if I’ve really been a good friend to her, If I’ve been putting in emotional deposits…that determines if she is going to accept my repair attempt…started us really looking at the quality of the friendship in the marriage.”
John Gottman
The major goal in having a good marriage is answering the question well: “How are you gonna fix things?”
It is not about doing things effectively, it’s not about improving communication skills…it’s about relating to your spouse so as to prepare the spouse to be receptive to your good-enough apology when you need to do it.
For more on Relationships 101, read more about what makes for a good relationship…based on thousands of couples providing hard evidence to researchers.
One more in the series Stayin Together 101…preparing your kids to stay together in their future marriages…you are more important than you know for the next generation!
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