The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships

by John Gottman

  By the same token, our friendships often suffer from a lack of time because of all our other commitments and obligations. So it often takes a bit of extra effort and creative thought to find opportunities for turning toward your friends. The exercise below may help.

  Exercise: Look for Opportunities to Turn Toward Your Friends

  Scan the following lists for ideas on how to turn toward your friends in new ways. Try out some of these ideas in the weeks ahead. Then look back and see how your efforts are affecting your friendship. Do you feel that you’re growing closer, feeling more connected?

  The exercise called Look for Opportunities to Turn Toward Your Spouse, on this page, provides ideas for lots of activities that would be fun to share with a friend as well. But some friendships—especially new ones and old ones that need rekindling—may require a different perspective or some fresh ideas for “turning toward.” These somewhat shorter lists of activities may help.

  Things to Do for Your Friends

  • Ask “How are you?” in a way that shows you’d really like to know.

  • Listen to their stories and jokes (even if you’ve heard them before).

  • Return the things you borrow.

  • Say “thank you” for favors.

  • Offer spur-of-the-moment invitations to coffee, dinner, or drinks (but don’t be hurt if your friends can’t come).

  • Accept spontaneous invitations when you can. (But don’t feel guilty if you can’t make it.)

  • Ask for advice, but don’t feel obligated to take it.

  • Ask friends if they’d like your advice before you offer it. If they say yes, share your wisdom. Don’t be disappointed when they don’t do what you suggest.

  • Know when what you’re asking for is too much.

  • Ask your friend about his or her childhood. Listen.

  • Remember his or her birthday with a card or a gift.

  • Nod in agreement when your friend says good things about his or her spouse or lover.

  • Notice and say positive things about your friends’ children.

  • Ask your friend about his or her dreams, goals, and visions. Listen.

  • Offer compliments.

  • Accept apologies.

  • Ask your friends about their life stories. Listen.

  • Ask your friends about their parents. Listen.

  • Tell them it’s okay to call anytime.

  • Let them off the hook when they say, “I can’t do it. I’m exhausted.”

  • Drive them to the airport when they’re going away on a special journey or a difficult trip.

  • Let them be as upset as they need to be.

  • Support their efforts at health improvement.

  • Encourage their efforts to build skills, learn more, become more.

  • Offer to help out when your friend is stressed.

  • Ask for help.

  • Let them help you.

  • Monitor your friend’s well-being, and be there in good times or bad.

  • When you lose track of each other over time, try to pick up where you left off.

  Things to Do Together

  • Visit one another.

  • Commute.

  • Exercise.

  • Volunteer.

  • Share gossip, jokes, and news via e-mail.

  • Phone one another often.

  • Form a group of friends who share a common hobby or interest. Meet regularly. When you can’t get together, discuss your common interests online.

  • Confide in one another and keep each other’s secrets.

  • Swap baby-sitting, pet-sitting, house-sitting.

  • Trade big favors like helping one another paint the house, move residences, or build a deck.

  • Celebrate one another’s successes.

  • Host a party for a mutual friend.

  • Share hugs, handshakes, pats on the back.

  • Cry together.

  • Be there for the big events in one another’s lives—kids’ weddings, parents’ funerals, serious illnesses.

  • Collaborate on a project.

  • Show one another your baby pictures.

  • Pray or meditate together.

  Step 2. Discover How the Brain’s Emotional Command Systems Affect Your Friendships

  A few months ago, I had a long visit with a close friend and professional colleague I had known for a long time. He came to see me at an extraordinary time in his career, a time when all of his life’s work seemed to be coming to fruition. As the afternoon unfolded and I listened to him tell me about his success, I realized that I had two choices. One was to react the way I had often reacted in similar situations when we were younger: I could jump in and start telling him about all the projects I’d been working on. I could catalog my recent accomplishments to see if he might be as impressed with my work as I was with his. In other words, I could do what so many men are accustomed to doing in friendship: I could turn the visit into a contest. But my second choice was to react in a different way. I could simply relax, listen, and focus on my friend’s story, sharing his sense of pride and happiness.

  I chose the second response, and I’m so glad I did so. It was a wonderful experience just to be with him and to relish this time in his life. I asked him to describe his thoughts and feelings about his work. By the end of our visit, I think we were both feeling very good about our friendship and this time we’d shared. And what about my stories? God willing, my friend and I will have many more good visits to come, and all that information can keep for another time.

  Looking back, I can see how the choice I made in that situation relates to the concept of emotional command systems. I chose during the visit to activate my Nest-Builder command system rather than my Commander-in-Chief. I consciously decided that it was more important to feel close to my friend at this time than to engage in a competitive game of “who’s up and who’s down.” It’s not that competition doesn’t have its place in friendship. Friendly, supportive rivalries can be very invigorating as we encourage and inspire one another to keep growing and improving our lives. And at different times in our lives, this had been true for my friend and me as well. But this time we chose to take our friendship down a different path.

  Staying aware of the way you activate your various emotional command systems can be helpful in any relationship, but I think it’s especially important in friendship because of the voluntary nature of such bonds. Compared with a marriage or parent-child relationship, it’s relatively easy to walk away from a friendship gone sour. You don’t have to file for divorce or relinquish custody to end a friendship. You can simply stop responding to phone messages and e-mail from a friend.

  Sustaining a mutually satisfying friendship, on the other hand, requires special care and many subtle negotiations—both spoken and unspoken. On the Nest-Builder front, friends need to establish how close the friendship will become. How much time will they spend together? Will they share true feelings? What happens when other commitments, such as work and family, get in the way? How will your Commander-in-Chief systems find a suitable balance? Will one person always take the lead? Will the other be perfectly happy in a supporting role?

  Friends who become sexually attracted to each other have to make decisions about managing (or not managing) their Sensualist command systems. Will they acknowledge the sexual energy between them? Or will they stay silent on the matter, allowing the energy to simmer on the back burner while dabbling in flirtation and fantasy? If they acknowledge the attraction, will they act on it, or will they set boundaries to keep it in check? And what becomes of the friendship if the two disagree?

  Friends who travel together may need to find the right balance between their Explorer systems in order to have a rewarding trip. Negotiations between Energy Czars will be required when one or both begin to grow tired and hungry. And if that trip includes risk, the two may have to get their Sentry systems aligned or go their separate ways. Aligning Sentry s
ystems often requires negotiation whenever two families with children start making plans together. (“You’re not going to let them go down to the beach alone, are you?” “I don’t care if it is New Year’s Eve. Our Melissa is not going to drink champagne!”) And if two friends’ Jester systems aren’t in balance, a friendship may wither from a simple lack of fun.

  That’s not to say you’re going to find the perfect balance in all these areas with all your friends. To the contrary, no single relationship can meet all your emotional needs. In fact, it would be a mistake to invest that much expectation into any relationship, including marriage. It’s better instead to focus on building congenial bonds with a variety of people who bring different gifts to your life. That way, you can revel in your friendships with a diverse group of friends. You can appreciate your friendship with competitive Charley, for example, who inspires you to boost your heart rate every time you go out for a run together. But you’d never tell Charley about your problems with your boss. You save those conversations for Chris, who hates to run but is always so compassionate, understanding, and insightful. Chris also has a great sense of humor, so you love to go see comedies together. But he’s not much of an Explorer. You’d rather travel with Esther, who…I’m sure you get the picture.

  If you completed the Emotional Command System questionnaires in chapter 4, you’ll have a picture of your preferences related to these systems. You may want to ask a friend to complete them as well, or you can answer them as you imagine your friend might. Then, using Your Emotional Command System Score Card on this page, you can compare your preferences with those of your friend.

  Step 3. Examine How Your Emotional Heritage Affects Your Relationships with Friends

  Friendship, like other relationships, is affected by our emotional heritage. The messages you heard in childhood about the expression of feelings, your family’s emotional philosophy, and past emotional injuries can all influence how you connect emotionally with friends.

  If you’ve completed the exercises in chapter 5 on emotional heritage issues, you should have a general sense of what these matters mean for your relationships. By completing the exercise below, you can focus on how such issues impact particular friendships. This increased awareness may help you improve your ability to bid and respond to bids for connection with friends.

  Exercise: How Does Your Past Influence Your Friendships

  Take a look at you responses to the emotional heritage exercises in chapter 5. Then, thinking of a particular friendship, answer the following questions in your Emotion Log. If you’re particularly close to this friend, you might want to do this exercise together. Or you can do it on your own, imagining how your friend might respond. Either way, look for opportunities to discuss these issues with your friend.

  1. Review your scores on the exercise What’s Your Emotional History? on this page. Look carefully at your scores in each category: pride, love, anger, sadness, and fear. Think about how comfortable you are with expressing each of these emotions to your friend. Then answer these questions, thinking about each emotion separately.

  • How does your comfort level with this emotion affect your ability to feel close to your friend?

  • When you experience this emotion, are you usually able to explain to your friend how you’re feeling?

  • Do you feel that your friend understands how you’re feeling?

  • Do you feel guilty or self-conscious expressing this feeling?

  • Is your friend likely to turn toward you, away from you, or against you when you express this emotion?

  • How would you like your friend to respond when you express this feeling? Can you and your friend talk about it?

  Now think about your comfort at hearing your friend express these emotions. Then answer these questions, again thinking about each emotion separately.

  • How does your comfort with hearing your friend express this feeling affect your ability to connect with him or her?

  • Do you feel that you’re able to empathize with your friend when he or she is feeling this way?

  • Do you feel embarrassed, frightened, or angry when your friend expresses this feeling?

  • Are you likely to turn toward, turn away from, or turn against your friend when he or she expresses this feeling?

  • How would you like to improve your ability to share such feelings with this friend?

  2. Review the results of your responses to the exercise What Was Your Family’s Philosophy of Emotion? on this page, and answer these questions.

  • Was your family’s philosophy primarily emotion-coaching, emotion-dismissing, emotion-disapproving, or laissez-faire?

  • In relating to your friend, what’s your emotional philosophy? What effect does your emotional philosophy have on this friendship?

  • In relating to you, is your friend primarily emotion-coaching, emotion-dismissing, emotion-disapproving, or laissez-faire? How does your friend’s emotional philosophy affect your relationship?

  3. Review the results of your response to the exercise What Are Your Enduring Vulnerabilities? on this page, and answer the following series of questions for yourself. Then answer the questions once more, this time putting yourself in your friend’s place.

  • How do your enduring vulnerabilities affect your ability to connect emotionally with your friend?

  • Do you feel that past injuries interfere with your ability to bid for emotional connection with this friend? In what way?

  • Do you feel that past injuries interfere with your ability to respond to your friend’s bids? How so?

  • Do past injuries ever get in the way of your ability to feel included by your friend?

  • Do past injuries interfere with your ability to express affection toward, or accept affection from, your friend?

  • Do you sometimes feel that you’re struggling too hard to control your friend because you feel vulnerable?

  • Do you sometimes feel that you’re struggling too hard to resist being controlled by this friend because you feel vulnerable?

  • Are there ways that your friend could help you to heal from past injuries? What healing thing would you like your friend to do or say? Can you express this to your friend?

  Step 4. Sharpen Your Skills at Emotional Communication with Your Friends

  Good friends can become quite adept at reading one another’s feelings through facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, and the like. We explored such nonverbal forms of communication in depth in chapter 6. Below is a reprise of a game designed to help you practice your emotional communications skills. This time around, all the items are geared toward situations involving friends.

  Exercise: The Emotional Communication Game with Your Friends

  To play the game with a friend, start by silently reading each item and its three possible interpretations. Then take turns reading the items aloud as your friend tries to guess which of the three meanings you’re trying to convey. You can also practice this on your own. But playing it with a friend may help you to gain special insights into the unique ways your friend expresses emotions.

  1. Do you want to have lunch this week?

  a. You’re angry that you always have to make all the suggestions about getting together.

  b. You’re pleasantly surprised that your friend seems to have time available, and you think it’s a great idea to have lunch together.

  c. You’re just asking for information about whether your friend has time for lunch.

  2. Are you busy right now?

  a. You sense that this might not be the right time to talk, and you don’t wish to intrude.

  b. You want to discuss an issue that your friend keeps avoiding, and that makes you feel irritated.

  c. You’re just asking for information.

  3. What do you think of this new suit?

  a. You love this new suit and think you look great in it; you’re fishing for a compliment.

  b. It was an overpriced suit, and you’re not sure
it looks good on you. You’re thinking of returning it.

  c. You hate this suit, and you want support for returning it.

  4. Did you make the reservations for Amy’s birthday party?

  a. You’re tired of having to remind your friend of things he or she agreed to do.

  b. You’re just wondering how the arrangements for the party are going.

  c. You’re happy that it was possible to make arrangements at such a great restaurant.

  5. Are you going to talk to your boss about a raise?

  a. You think your friend should ask for a raise, and you’re worried that he or she is being too meek about this important issue.

  b. You think this is the wrong time to push for a salary increase, and you’re worried that your friend may be acting too pushy.

  c. You’re just asking for information.

  Step 5. Find Shared Meaning in Your Friendships

  Friendships based on shared meaning are probably the richest friendships of all. How satisfying it is to know that you and your friends have interests and values in common, that you understand one another’s aspirations and dreams. You can foster this sense of shared meaning by completing the exercise below and by participating in the rituals of connection described after that.

  Exercise: What Does Friendship Mean to You?

  Below is a list of questions to help you clarify the meaning of friendship in your life. As you read these questions, think about particular friends and the way those relationships are currently unfolding. Your answers may point to the strengths and weaknesses of those bonds. The exercise may help you to see new directions you can take to strengthen your emotional connections with friends. If you feel especially close to a particular friend, you may want to read and consider this list together. But you can also use the list on your own, simply imagining how your friends would answer these questions. Then, if you get the chance, you may want to bring up individual topics mentioned here, and see if your perceptions match their ideas.