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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

2 practices

Narrow these down

Keep one daily moment to reconnect, a few minutes that are only about the two of you.

Morning coffee, the walk, the goodnight. A small daily island of us.

Five minutesRituals of connectionEmotionally focusedQur’an 4:19One line of research

Once this week, sit together unhurried and share one feeling and one reassurance.

Not logistics. How are we really, and what do you need from me. A regular heart to heart.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionEmotionally focusedQur’an 30:21One line of research

Learn this in order

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