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Your marriage
What keeps a marriage well is not the big gestures. It is knowing each other, turning towards each other in ordinary moments, staying regulated when it gets hot, and repairing quickly when it goes wrong. Most of the practices here take under five minutes.
What works for this
Gottman on repair, and emotionally focused therapy
What separates couples who last is not the absence of conflict but what happens in the ordinary moments and whether repair gets through. Emotionally focused therapy works on the pattern the two of you fall into, not the thing being argued about.
One move, today
Notice one small overture from them today and answer it. Not a conversation, just turning towards it rather than past it.
What matches
7 practicesOffer your spouse one clear reassurance today: I am here, we are okay.
When they wobble, say the steadying thing plainly rather than assuming they know.
Offer a full, tender apology for a wound, with no defence appended.
I see how that hurt you, and I am truly sorry. Then stop. The silence after is the repair.
Rebuild trust today with one small, consistent, kept action rather than a grand promise.
Trust returns in tiny reliable acts, not speeches. Do the small thing you said, again.
After a fight cools today, say the reconnecting thing: we are still okay.
The fight can leave a quiet fear. Naming that you are still solid puts it to rest.
Name one old hurt with your spouse that still aches, gently and without re-litigating.
When you were not there that day, it marked me. Naming it is not attacking, it is asking to heal.
When your spouse names a wound you caused, listen without defending, even once.
Not I didn't mean to. First: I hear that I hurt you, and I am sorry. Defence can wait.
Where the harm has truly stopped, begin to set down a grievance you have carried.
Not forgetting, releasing. Once the wound is no longer being made, let it start to close.