Areas › Your marriage
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
3 practicesAfter a fight has cooled, revisit it once without blame, each saying how it felt.
Not who was right. How it felt for me, how it felt for you, and what we each needed.
On the fight you keep having, stop trying to win it and ask what it means to them underneath.
What are you hoping for, or afraid of, in this. Then only listen for the dream beneath.
Before you argue your side, say their side back so well that they feel understood.
Summarize what they mean until they say yes, that is it. Then, and only then, your turn.
