The secret of happy love

By observing how a couple communicates with each other, psychologist John Gottman can predict with almost one hundred percent probability whether they will be happy together years later or if their relationship has no future. It sounds incredible, but Gottman has 40 years of scientific research behind him.

“Happy couples first of all see the positive in each other, something for which you can say “thank you”, hug and just be glad that life has brought together such a wonderful person,” says Gottman. “They purposefully build relationships on respect and gratitude. Unhappy couples, on the contrary, are constantly looking for something to complain about in a partner, catching his or her every mistake.

Gottman and his wife Julie, also a psychologist, are among the world’s most famous marriage experts. Over decades, they have counseled thousands of couples and conducted hundreds of experiments to discover the secret to a happy marriage.

Gottman’s most interesting experiment was called the Love Lab. The newlyweds were invited to the laboratory, electrodes were connected to them and asked to tell about the history of their relationship – how they met, what caused the most terrible quarrel, what happy events of their life together were most remembered. The researchers observed how they communicated with each other, and the electrodes measured the blood flow, heart rate and other physiological reactions of the participants. Then the newlyweds were sent home, and after six years they were contacted again to find out if they were still together or not.

Based on the collected data, Gottman divided couples into two large groups: happy and unhappy. The first managed to maintain a happy marriage after six years. The second either parted, or lived together, but suffered together. When the researchers analyzed the data, they saw a clear difference between the first and second groups.

Future unhappy couples looked calm, talking about their relationship, but the reactions of their body, measured by electrodes, said otherwise. Hearts were beating fast, they were sweating, the blood flow was fast. By all indications, their bodies were operating in a primal fear-fight-or-flight response.

Their body reacted to closeness and simple conversation with a loved one as if it were face to face with a saber-toothed tiger. Even when they talked about pleasant or insignificant things in their relationship, they expected an attack from a partner or prepared to attack themselves. Gottman discovered a pattern: the more actively the bodies of partners in the laboratory reacted, the faster their relationship collapsed over time.

Couples who have maintained a happy marriage after six years, on the contrary, showed low physiological tension from the very beginning. They felt calm and confident together, which was expressed in a careful, loving attitude towards a partner, even during a quarrel. The point is not that they have a better physiology, Gottman believes, but that they know how to create an atmosphere of trust, warmth and love for each other. But how do they do it?

As Gottman found, the main reason for divorce is contempt and neglect for a partner. Those of us who look for the slightest reason to criticize and are not accustomed to respectfully respond to the requests of a partner miss 50% of the positive things that are done for them and see the negative where there is none. They kill not only love, but literally their beloved / beloved – constant criticism from significant people weakens our immunity, the ability to fight viruses and oncology. Anger and indifference mean the death of relationships.

On the contrary, kindness, cordiality, tenderness and attentiveness incredibly increase affection for each other, and over the years it only grows stronger. Research shows that kindness is the single most important predictor of marital stability. A good attitude gives us the opportunity to feel loved – we are understood, appreciated, taken care of.

However, one should not think of kindness as a given character trait once and for all: you either have it or you don’t. In fact, Gottman explains, kindness is like a muscle—the more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. Relationships need to be worked on so that they are always in shape – this is exactly what loving couples do.

Of course, it is most difficult to show kindness during quarrels and conflicts – but this is also the most important time for being kind. When we experience a fall, our family should be a soft featherbed into which we are not afraid to fall. It is very easy to ruin a relationship with bad words.

“Being kind does not mean that we have to hide our anger,” explains Julie Gottman. Rather, kindness suggests how best to express it. Instead of showering insults on your partner, you can explain why you are hurting and angry. For example, instead of “What’s the matter with you, I’m late again! Your spitting mother!” you can say, “I hate to say this and I know it’s not your fault, but it really pisses me off that you’re late again.”

It’s not about gifts like a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates, although they are good from time to time, but about how we communicate with each other every day. One way to practice being kind to each other is to actively look for reasons to thank your loved one for something during the day and not focus on the negative (“Dirty dishes!” “Late again!”) made a mistake. For example, an angry wife may decide that her husband didn’t raise the toilet seat on purpose to annoy her, but in fact he simply forgot about it.

Another powerful way to strengthen relationships is to share the joy of a partner. The problem with unhappy couples is often that they are unable to be happy for each other. “Imagine, I got promoted!” “Uh-huh, great, I have to run.” Being together and sharing the joy, success of a loved one is just as important as being close in times of trial.