The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

by John Gottman, Ph. D.

  To address this paucity of good research, my colleagues and I have supplemented traditional approaches to studying marriage with many innovative, more extensive methods. We are now following seven hundred couples in seven different studies. We have not just studied newlyweds but long-term couples who were first assessed while in their forties or sixties. We have also studied couples just becoming parents and couples interacting with their babies, their preschoolers, and their teenagers.

  As part of this research, I have interviewed couples about the history of their marriage, their philosophy about marriage, how they viewed their parents’ marriages. I have videotaped them talking to each other about how their day went, discussing areas of continuing disagreement in their marriage, and also conversing about joyful topics. And to get a physiological read of how stressed or relaxed they were feeling, I measured their heart rate, blood flow, sweat output, blood pressure, and immune function moment by moment. In all of these studies, I’d play back the tapes to the couples and ask them for an insiders’ perspective of what they were thinking and feeling when, say, their heart rate or blood pressure suddenly surged during a marital discussion. And I’ve kept track of the couples, checking in with them at least every year to see how their relationship is faring.

  So far my colleagues and I are the only researchers to conduct such an exhaustive observation and analysis of married couples. Our data offer the first real glimpse of the inner workings—the anatomy—of marriage. The results of these studies, not my own opinions, form the basis of my Seven Principles for making marriage work. These principles, in turn, are the cornerstones of a remarkably effective short-term therapy for couples that I have developed along with my wife, clinical psychologist Julie Gottman, Ph.D. This therapy, and some briefer workshops that follow the same principles, are intended for couples who find that their marriage is in trouble or just want to ensure it stays strong.

  Our approach contrasts dramatically with the standard one offered by most marriage therapists. This is because as my research began to uncover the true story of marriage, I had to throw out some long-hallowed beliefs about marriage and divorce.

  WHY MOST MARRIAGE THERAPY FAILS

  If you’ve had or are having troubles in your relationship, you’ve probably gotten lots of advice. Sometimes it seems like everybody who’s ever been married or knows anyone who’s ever been married thinks he holds the secret to guaranteeing endless love. But most of these notions, whether intoned by a psychologist on TV or by a wise manicurist at the local mall, are wrong. Many such theories, even those initially espoused by talented theorists, have been long discredited—or deserve to be. But they have become so firmly entrenched in the popular culture that you’d never know it.

  Perhaps the biggest myth of all is that communication—and more specifically, learning to resolve your conflicts—is the royal road to romance and an enduring, happy marriage. Whatever a marriage therapist’s theoretical orientation, whether you opt for short-term therapy, long-term therapy, or a three-minute radio consultation with your local Frasier, the message you’ll get is pretty uniform: Learn to communicate better. The sweeping popularity of this approach is easy to understand. When most couples find themselves in a conflict (whether it gets played out as a short spat, an all-out screaming match, or stony silence), they each gird themselves to win the fight. They become so focused on how hurt they feel, on proving that they’re right and their spouse is wrong, or on keeping up a cold shoulder, that the lines of communication between the two may be overcome by static or shut down altogether. So it seems to make sense that calmly and lovingly listening to each other’s perspective would lead couples to find compromise solutions and regain their marital composure.

  The most common technique recommended for resolving conflict—used in one guise or another by most marital therapists—is called active listening. For example, a therapist might urge you to try some form of the listener-speaker exchange. Let’s say Judy is upset that Bob works late most nights. The therapist asks Judy to state her complaints as “I” statements that focus on what she’s feeling rather than hurling accusations at Bob. Judy will say, “I feel lonely and overwhelmed when I’m home alone with the kids night after night while you’re working late,” rather than, “It’s so selfish of you to always work late and expect me to take care of the kids by myself.”

  Then Bob is asked to paraphrase both the content and the feelings of Judy’s message, and to check with her if he’s got it right. (This shows he is actively listening to her.) He is also asked to validate her feelings—to let her know he considers them legitimate, that he respects and empathizes with her even if he doesn’t share her perspective. He might say: “It must be hard for you to watch the kids by yourself when I’m working late.” Bob is being asked to suspend judgment, not argue for his point of view, and to respond nondefensively. “I hear you” is a common active-listening buzz word. Thanks to Bill Clinton, “I feel your pain” may now be the most notorious.

  By forcing couples to see their differences from each other’s perspective, problem solving is supposed to take place without anger. This approach is often recommended whatever the specific issue—whether your conflict concerns the size of your grocery bill or major differences in your lifelong goals. Conflict resolution is touted not only as a cure-all for troubled marriages but as a tonic that can prevent good marriages from faltering.

  Where did this approach come from? The pioneers of marital therapy adapted it from techniques used by the renowned psychotherapist Carl Rogers for individual psychotherapy. Rogerian psychotherapy had its heyday in the 1960s and is still practiced in varying degrees by psychotherapists today. His approach entails responding in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner to all feelings and thoughts the patient expresses. For example, if the patient says, “I just hate my wife, she’s such a nagging bitch,” the therapist nods and says something like “I hear you saying that your wife nags you and you hate that.” The goal is to create an empathetic environment so the patient feels safe exploring his inner thoughts and emotions and confiding in the therapist.

  Since marriage is also, ideally, a relationship in which people feel safe being themselves, it might seem to make sense to train couples to practice this sort of unconditional understanding. Conflict resolution is certainly easier if each party expresses empathy for the other’s perspective.

  The problem is that it doesn’t work. A Munich-based marital therapy study conducted by Dr. Kurt Hahlweg and associates found that even after employing active listening techniques the typical couple was still distressed. Those few couples who did benefit relapsed within a year.

  The wide range of marital therapies based on conflict resolution share a very high relapse rate. In fact, the best of this type of marital therapy, conducted by Neil Jacobson, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, has only a 35 percent success rate. In other words, his own studies show that only 35 percent of couples see a meaningful improvement in their marriages as a result of the therapy. A year later, less than half of that group—or just 18 percent of all couples who entered therapy—retain these benefits. When Consumer Reports surveyed a large sample of its members on their experience with all kinds of psychotherapists, most got very high customer satisfaction marks—except for marital therapists, who got very poor ratings. This survey may not qualify as rigorous scientific research, but it confirms what most professionals in this field know: In the long run, current approaches to marital therapy do not benefit the majority of couples.

  When you really think about it, it’s not difficult to see why active listening so often fails. Bob might do his best to listen thoughtfully to Judy’s complaints. But he is not a therapist listening to a patient whine about a third party. The person his wife is trashing behind all of those “I” statements is him. There are some people who can be magnanimous in the face of such criticism—the Dalai Lama comes to mind. But it’s unlikely that you or your spouse is married to one of them. (Even in Rogerian therapy, when the c
lient starts complaining about the therapist, the therapist switches from empathy to other therapeutic approaches.) Active listening asks couples to perform Olympic-level emotional gymnastics when their relationship can barely walk.

  If you think validation and active listening will make conflict resolution easier for you and your spouse, by all means use it. There are circumstances where it can certainly come in handy. But here’s the catch: Even if it does make your fights “better” or less frequent, it alone cannot save your marriage.

  * * *

  Even happily married couples can have screaming matches—loud arguments don’t necessarily harm a marriage.

  * * *

  After studying some 650 couples and tracking the fate of their marriages for up to fourteen years, we now understand that this approach to counseling doesn’t work, not just because it’s nearly impossible for most couples to do well, but more importantly because successful conflict resolution isn’t what makes marriages succeed. One of the most startling findings of our research is that most couples who have maintained happy marriages rarely do anything that even partly resembles active listening when they’re upset.

  Consider one couple we studied, Belle and Charlie. After more than forty-five years of marriage, Belle informed Charlie that she wished they had never had children. This clearly rankled him. What followed was a conversation that broke all the active listening rules. This discussion doesn’t include a lot of validation or empathy—they both jump right in, arguing their point.

  CHARLIE: You think you would have been better off if I had backed you in not having children?

  BELLE: Having children was such an insult to me, Charlie.

  CHARLIE: No. Hold on a minute.

  BELLE: To reduce me to such a level!

  CHARLIE: I’m not redu—

  BELLE: I wanted so much to share a life with you. Instead I ended up a drudge.

  CHARLIE: Now wait a minute, hold on. I don’t think not having children is that simple. I think that there’s a lot biologically that you’re ignoring.

  BELLE: Look at all the wonderful marriages that have been childless.

  CHARLIE: Who?

  BELLE: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor!

  CHARLIE (deep sigh): Please!

  BELLE: He was the king! He married a valuable woman. They had a very happy marriage.

  CHARLIE: I don’t think that’s a fair example. First of all, she was forty. That makes a difference.

  BELLE: She never had children. And he fell in love with her not because she was going to reproduce.

  CHARLIE: But the fact is, Belle, that there is a real strong biological urge to have children.

  BELLE: That’s an insult to think that I’m regulated by biology.

  CHARLIE: I can’t help it!

  BELLE: Well, anyway, I think we would have had a ball without children.

  CHARLIE: Well, I think we had a ball with the kids, too.

  BELLE: I didn’t have that much of a ball.

  Charlie and Belle may not sound like June and Ward Cleaver, but they have been happily married for over forty-five years. They both say they are extremely satisfied with their marriage and devoted to each other.

  No doubt they have been having similar in-your-face discussions for years. They don’t end off angrily, either. They go on to discuss why Belle feels this way about motherhood. Her major regret is that she wasn’t more available to spend time with Charlie. She wishes she hadn’t always been so cranky and tired. There’s a lot of affection and laughter as they hash this out. Neither of their heart rates or blood pressures indicate distress. The bottom line of what Belle is saying is that she loves Charlie so much, she wishes she had had more time with him. Clearly, there’s something very positive going on between them that overrides their argumentative style. Whatever that “something” is, marriage counseling, with its emphasis on “good” fighting, doesn’t begin to help other couples tap into it.

  EXPLODING MORE MYTHS ABOUT MARRIAGE

  The notion that you can save your marriage just by learning to communicate more sensitively is probably the most widely held misconception about happy marriages—but it’s hardly the only one. Over the years I’ve found many other myths that are not only false but potentially destructive to a marriage because they can lead couples down the wrong path or, worse, convince them that their marriage is a hopeless case. Among these common myths:

  Neuroses or personality problems ruin marriages. You might assume that people with hang-ups would be ill suited for marriage. But research has found only the weakest connection between run-of-the-mill neuroses and failing at love. The reason: We all have our crazy buttons—issues we’re not totally rational about. But they don’t necessarily interfere with marriage. The key to a happy marriage isn’t having a “normal” personality but finding someone with whom you mesh. For example, Sam has a problem dealing with authority—he hates having a boss. If he were married to an authoritarian woman who tended to give commands and tried to tell him what to do, the result would be disastrous. But instead he is married to Megan, who treats him like a partner and doesn’t try to boss him around. They’ve been happily married for ten years.

  Contrast them with another couple who do run into marital problems. Jill has a deep-seated fear of abandonment due to her parents’ divorcing when she was very young. Her husband, Wayne, who is truly devoted to her, is a debonair ladies’ man who flirts shamelessly at parties. When she complains, he points out that he is 100 percent faithful to her and insists she lighten up and let him enjoy this harmless pleasure. But the threat Jill perceives from his flirtations—and his unwillingness to stop—drives them to separate and eventually divorce.

  The point is that neuroses don’t have to ruin a marriage. What matters is how you deal with them. If you can accommodate each other’s strange side and handle it with caring, affection, and respect, your marriage can thrive.

  Common interests keep you together. That all depends on how you interact while pursuing those interests. One husband and wife who love kayaking may glide smoothly down the water, laughing, talking, and concentrating together. Their love of kayaking enriches and deepens their fondness and interest in each other. Another couple may equally share a love of kayaking but not the same mutual respect. Their travels may be punctuated with “That’s not the way to do a J-stroke, you idiot!” or irritated silences. It’s hard to see how pursuing their common interest is in the best interest of their marriage.

  You scratch my back and . . . Some researchers believe that what distinguishes good marriages from failing ones is that in good marriages spouses respond in kind to positive overtures from the other. In other words, they meet a smile with a smile, a kiss with a kiss. When one helps the other with a chore, the other intentionally reciprocates, and so on. In essence, the couple function with an unwritten agreement to offer recompense for each kind word or deed. In bad marriages this contract has broken down, so that anger and resentment fill the air. By making the floundering couple aware of the need for some such “contract,” the theory goes, their interactions could be repaired.

  But it’s really the unhappy marriage where this quid pro quo operates, where each feels the need to keep a running tally of who has done what for whom. Happy spouses do not keep tabs on whether their mate is washing the dishes as a payback because they cooked dinner. They just do it because they generally feel positive about their spouse and their relationship. If you find yourself keeping score about some issue with your spouse, that suggests it’s an area of tension in your marriage.

  Avoiding conflict will ruin your marriage. “Tell it like it is” has become a pervasive attitude. But honesty is not best for all marriages. Plenty of lifelong relationships happily survive even though the couple tend to shove things under the rug. Take Allan and Betty. When Allan gets annoyed at Betty, he turns on ESPN. When Betty is upset with him, she heads for the mall. Then they regroup and go on as if nothing happened. Never in forty years of marriage have they sat down to h
ave a “dialogue” about their relationship. Neither of them could tell you what a “validating” statement is. Yet they will tell you honestly that they are both very satisfied with their marriage and that they love each other deeply, hold the same values, love to fish and travel together, and wish for their children as happy a married life as they have shared.

  Couples simply have different styles of conflict. Some avoid fights at all costs, some fight a lot, and some are able to “talk out” their differences and find a compromise without ever raising their voices. No one style is necessarily better than the other—as long as the style works for both people. Couples can run into trouble if one partner always wants to talk out a conflict while the other just wants to watch the playoffs.

  Affairs are the root cause of divorce. In most cases it’s the other way around. Problems in the marriage that send the couple on a trajectory to divorce also send one (or both) of them looking for intimate connection outside the marriage. Most marital therapists who write about extramarital affairs find that these trysts are usually not about sex but about seeking friendship, support, understanding, respect, attention, caring, and concern—the kind of things that marriage is supposed to offer. In probably the most reliable survey ever done on divorce, by Lynn Gigy, Ph.D., and Joan Kelly, Ph.D., from the Divorce Mediation Project in Corte Madera, California, 80 percent of divorced men and women said their marriage broke up because they gradually grew apart and lost a sense of closeness, or because they did not feel loved and appreciated. Only 20 to 27 percent of couples said an extramarital affair was even partially to blame.