So you keep hearing me refer to The Gottman Method, and you're wondering what it is...Well, I'd be delighted to explain! But buckle up and grab a snack first, because it's one of my favorite things to talk about.
The Gottman Method is a type of couple's counseling that is named for its founders, Drs. John and Julie Gottman. They've worked together for almost fifty years doing longitudinal research with couples to explore what makes some couples live happily ever after, while other couples split up or even stay unhappily married. To do this, they've used standard pencil/paper śurveys as well as interviews and even observational studies. They've followed the same couples for almost fifty years, and they've even controlled for variables such as socioeconomic status, language, ethnicity, culture, religion, sexuality, and gender. Their studies have been massive, reliable, and valid; and they've proven again and again that they can now predict with 96% accuracy which couples will succeed and which ones will fail. Amazing, right?
However, their reason for doing all this research was not for this knowledge alone. Indeed, they have done so much more. They found real, clinically significant, differences between these two distinct groups - they named them the "masters" of relationships and the "disasters" of relationships. And they've taught thousands of counselors (like me!😊) how to help couples do all the things that the "masters" do while avoiding the things that the "disasters" do.
The Gottmans built the "Sound Relationship House" theory, where they have used the analogy that compares a master relationship to a house. The foundation of this house is friendship - without a solid friendship, the house could fall! But on a strong friendship, this house can support many floors. From the bottom up, each floor is built:
Love Maps: Couples that thrive know their partners so well that they could draw a map of their partner - inside and out. They know their partner's likes, dislikes, goals, hopes, dreams, and (yes!) even their emotional triggers. It's easy to build this map when we are in the beginning of a relationship, when we literally can't get enough of each other. However, maintaining these maps becomes harder with each passing year and each added responsibility. The couples I work with are usually surprised to learn that they no longer know each other like they once did. So we rebuild and strengthen these maps!
Fondness, Admiration, Rituals of Connection, a Positive Perspective: The next several floors serve to maintain a strong friendship, and I teach couples how to protect their relationship from many pitfalls that often threaten long-term relationships.
Conflict Management: Surprise, Surprise!!! Healthy couples fight! The goal is not to avoid conflict (indeed, this can make matters worse). Instead, I teach my couples how to fight fairly, productively, and rarely. Are you ready for this?!?! Are you? Here goes:
Fighting can bring couples closer.
Truly, it can!
In the midst of a fight, we are at our most vulnerable. We are being open and honest. And we are figuratively offering our hearts to our partners on a platter. In doing so, we take an enormous risk; our partners can either handle our hearts with care or throw them in the air, allowing them to come crashing down, into a million little things. Then we finally conclude that this fight (this whole relationship really) was very very far from fair.
Hoping and Dreaming Together: The upper floors of our healthy relationship represent finding a shared purpose in life as well as supporting each other's individual goals. It can take years to build these upper floors, and they are only possible when the lower floors are solid and strong. Indeed, couples rarely succeed in building the upper floors. However, we include these upper floors so that we can work towards an ideal relationship. The healthiest couples constantly and consistently strive to make their relationships better each and every day!
Trust and Commitment: The walls that support our relationships represent trust and commitment; they not only protect us from outside threats, but they also keep our relationships balanced and help us continue to grow together. On the contrary, when that trust is broken, the whole house can collapse, fall, and fail. Loyalty and fidelity are imperative, but there are so many other forms of trust that can be threatened and broken. We trust each other with our finances, our emotions, our privacy, and even with our children.
Many people (falsely) think that adultery is the biggest culprit in causing divorce. However, I have noticed the opposite: couples who initially suffer from emotional and/or physical affairs also use their betrayals as a springboard to strengthen, enhance, and renew their commitment to one another and to their relationship. In fact, most marriages that fall do so because, somewhere along the way, the couple loses track of each other due to the busy nature of our lives.
Therefore, the biggest lesson I've personally learned from the Gottmans is that we need to be intentional about maintaining close connections with our life partners. Quality time, date nights, memories made, and the many unique Rituals of Connection that I share with my husband Brook are what hold us together like glue; and they don't happen by accident! So plan a hot date with your partner, engage in “real” conversations that don't stop with planning carpool, discussing how to punish a kid, and planning meals for the week! Have fun, make memories, and build out your life dreams!
I could write many more pages about The Gottman Method. Full disclosure - I get super excited about this stuff and tend to geek out about it. I've taken hours upon hours of Gottman training, and I'm so passionate about using this stuff to help couples through difficult transitions, life circumstances, and heartbreak. To learn more about The Gottman Method, you can check out www.gottman.com and/or contact me here to get started in couples therapy! By mentioning this blog post, you'll even earn a free and complete relationship assessment to jumpstart the process! I can't wait to work with you and to teach The Gottman Method to couples like you!