Book Summary: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver
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The book: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (revised edition, 2015) is John Gottman's book for couples, written with Nan Silver. It draws on decades of research in his "Love Lab" at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he recorded couples talking and followed them for years afterward. His main finding is that happy marriages rest on a deep friendship, not on avoiding conflict.
If you keep having the same fight, book a $30 first session.
How Gottman predicts divorce
Gottman says that across seven studies his predictions of which couples would divorce averaged 91 percent accuracy. He lists six signs:
- Harsh start-up. A conversation that starts with criticism or sarcasm usually ends badly. He found that 96 percent of the time, the first three minutes predicted how a fifteen-minute conversation would end.
- The four horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. A complaint is about a specific behavior. Criticism attacks your partner's character. Contempt, which includes sarcasm, eye-rolling and mockery, is poisonous because it conveys disgust.
- Flooding. Your partner's negativity overwhelms you, so you shut down to protect yourself.
- Body language. When people are flooded, their heart rate can climb past 100 beats a minute.
- Failed repair attempts. Every couple slips into negativity. What matters is whether attempts to stop it, like a joke or a "let's take a break," get through.
- Bad memories. Couples who are deeply negative about each other start to rewrite their history together.
The principles
1. Enhance your love maps
A love map is what you know about your partner's world: their worries, hopes, friends and history. Gottman found that couples with detailed love maps handled big changes better, including the arrival of a first baby. You keep the map current by asking open-ended questions and remembering the answers.
2. Nurture your fondness and admiration
Happy couples find each other's flaws annoying but still see each other as worthy of honor and respect. Fondness and admiration are the antidote to contempt. Gottman's exercises ask partners to name what they appreciate in each other and to remember the good parts of their history.
3. Turn toward each other instead of away
Couples constantly make "bids" for each other's attention, affection, humor or support, often in small ways. In Gottman's six-year follow-up of newlyweds, couples who stayed married had turned toward each other's bids 86 percent of the time. Couples who divorced had done so only 33 percent of the time. He calls these small moments deposits in an emotional bank account.
4. Let your partner influence you
Gottman found that men who wouldn't share power with their wives were much more likely to divorce: when a man is unwilling to share power, he says, there is an 81 percent chance the marriage will self-destruct. He is clear that wives need to treat husbands with honor and respect too. The point is that both partners need to take each other's opinions and feelings into account.
Two kinds of conflict
Gottman found that 69 percent of marital conflicts are perpetual problems. They come from lasting differences in personality or needs, and couples are still arguing about the same things years later. The rest are solvable. The happy couples in his studies had perpetual problems too. They had learned to live with them.
5. Solve your solvable problems
His five steps:
- Soften your start-up.
- Learn to make and receive repair attempts.
- Soothe yourself and each other.
- Compromise.
- Process any grievances so that they don't linger.
He applies these to the most common areas of conflict: work stress, in-laws, money, sex, housework, digital distractions, and a new baby.
6. Overcome gridlock
Gottman says gridlock "is a sign that you each have dreams for your life that the other isn't aware of, hasn't acknowledged, or doesn't respect." You don't have to solve the problem to get past gridlock. The goal, in his words, "is to be able to acknowledge and discuss the issue without hurting each other." His steps are to explore the dreams behind each position, soothe, reach a temporary compromise, and thank each other.
7. Create shared meaning
The last principle is about building a life together that means something to both of you. Gottman describes four pillars: rituals of connection, support for each other's roles, shared goals, and shared values and symbols.
What it means for couples
- Notice how you start hard conversations. A softer start changes the whole conversation.
- Watch for contempt in yourself, including sarcasm and eye-rolling, and replace it with appreciation.
- Respond to small bids. They matter more than big gestures.
- Stop trying to win perpetual problems. Get curious about what your partner wants underneath their position.