The key ideas

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

John Gottman, Nan Silver, 1999

For years John Gottman watched couples in an apartment where instruments recorded every word and every heartbeat. From the first minutes of an argument, he learned to tell who would divorce. You'll learn which four habits destroy a marriage, why most fights don't need to be won, and what really holds long, happy couples together.

Who it is for

For anyone in a couple who wants it to feel as warm in ten years as it did at the start. And for anyone worn out by the same fights over and over, who can't see why they never end.

Most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other's minds, but it can't be done.

The apartment that recorded every heartbeat

In Seattle there is the University of Washington, and it once had an unusual apartment. A kitchen, a sofa, a TV, a view of the water. But cameras were built into the walls, and people wore sensors that tracked their pulse and their sweat. Couples came and lived there almost as they would at home: they ate breakfast, read the paper, argued about money. Researchers behind the glass recorded every word and every heartbeat. The apartment got a joking nickname: the Love Lab.

The man who ran it, the psychologist John Gottman, studied couples for decades. He learned to do something that is hard to believe: after listening to a couple argue, he could predict whether they would divorce. Together with the journalist Nan Silver, he wrote this book in 1999 to translate his data into the language of everyday life.

Gottman's main finding sounds surprising. Happy couples are not smarter, not richer, and they don't fight less. They argue just as much and get just as irritated. But underneath it all lies a deep friendship: respect for each other and the pleasure of simply being together. The rest of the book explains how that friendship works and how to protect it.

First we'll look at the signs that tell Gottman a marriage is heading for its end. Then we'll walk through his seven principles, which help a couple turn back. You'll get habits, not theory, and you can start them tonight.

The first three minutes decide the fight

Picture this: Kira comes home and sees a mountain of dishes. The first line slips out on its own: “Do you ever do anything around this house?” The conversation may go on for an hour, but its fate is already sealed.

Gottman noticed this in his recordings. From the first three minutes of an argument, he could tell with about 96 percent accuracy how it would end. If a conversation starts with blame, sarcasm or mockery, it almost always ends badly, even if both people try hard afterwards. Gottman calls this kind of opening a harsh startup.

Here is an important nuance: complaining is fine, and even necessary. Gottman separates a complaint from criticism. A complaint is about an action. Criticism is about the person. “I'm hurt that the dishes are left undone again. I was counting on you.” is a complaint. “You're selfish, you don't care about anyone” is already a verdict on someone's character.

Criticism turns one dirty plate into a question of whether you are a bad person. Anyone faced with that question will start defending themselves, and the conversation about the dishes never happens.

A gentle startup doesn't need special words. It's enough to talk about yourself and the specific situation instead of handing down a verdict. Then your partner gets a chance to help instead of having to defend themselves.

Read in Livria

About the author

John Gottman is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington who has studied married couples for more than forty years. Nan Silver is a journalist and the co-author of several of his books.

All books by this author: John Gottman, Nan Silver

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Quiz

Terms from the book

  • Love Lab
  • Four Horsemen
  • Seattle: A large city in the northwest of the United States, in Washington State.
  • University of Washington: A public university in Seattle, on the west coast of the United States. Gottman ran his research on couples there for many years.
  • Harsh startup: A term from Gottman's book: a conversation that, from its very first words, is built on blame, sarcasm or mockery.
  • Apocalypse: The last book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. It describes four horsemen who bring disaster before the end of the world.
  • Contempt: Looking down on your partner: mockery, sarcasm, eye-rolling, ridicule. Gottman considers it the most dangerous of the Four Horsemen.
  • Stonewalling: Gottman's word for when a person goes silent, turns away and stops responding, as if a stone wall had grown between them and their partner.
  • Flooding: Gottman's term for the state in which a partner's negativity hits so hard that the body switches into alarm mode, the heart pounds and calm thinking is no longer possible.
  • Repair attempts: A term from the book: any word, gesture or joke that stops a fight from escalating. For example, “let's slow down” or “sorry, I went too far.”
  • Love map: Gottman's image for the part of your memory that holds everything you know about your partner's life: their worries, plans, friends, fears and hopes.
  • Emotional bank account: An image from the book: every response to your partner's bid for attention is like a deposit into a shared account, which the couple draws on later in hard times.
  • Perpetual problems: Gottman's term for disagreements that grow out of differences in personality or values and don't go away over the years of a marriage. Couples learn to live with them rather than solve them.
  • Wile: Dan Wile, an American psychologist who has worked with couples for many years, and the author of the book “After the Honeymoon.”
  • Gridlock: Gottman's term for a perpetual problem that a couple argues about again and again without any movement, while each partner feels rejected.

All terms

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