John Gottman of the Gottman Institute is the co-author of many acclaimed books including “10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage”, “The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work” and “What Makes Love Last”. 

The takeaway for me from “10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage” is that some problems in a relationship are perpetual and never solved. These can be differences of personality or lifestyle. You like to get up early but your partner is a night owl. You like your home to be clean and tidy while your partner has a more relaxed attitude. Although this can sound like an insoluble situation, masters of relationships manage these difference by open dialogue and sometimes with humour. Here’s a YouTube link to John Gottman and his co-author Julie Schwartz Gottman discussing the concepts in their book  “10 Lessons to transform your marriage”.

“What emerged from the Gottmans’ collaboration and decades of research is a body of advice that’s based on two surprisingly simple truths: Happily married couples behave like good friends, and they handle their conflicts in gentle, positive ways. The authors offer an intimate look at ten couples who have learned to work through potentially destructive problems–extramarital affairs, workaholism, parenthood adjustments, serious illnesses, lack of intimacy–and examine what they’ve done to improve communication and get their marriages back on track.”

The Marriage Minute

Through the Gottman Institute’s website you can sign up for free bi-weekly emails called The Marriage Minute. The free bi-weekly emails give clear tips for improving relationships which are backed up by over 50 years of research with thousands of couples. What I particularly like about their work on relationships is that it is based on scientific direct observations. Here’s a link to the Gottman Institute website:

https://www.gottman.com/marriage-minute/

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