Advice on Human Relationships [Review]

This is a review/testimonial for the book 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John Gottman.

I often find myself using concepts from this book to talk about relationships; it's reached a point where I want more of the people I know to know these concepts, and I also think more people should know about them for their own benefit. So here's me writing some of this stuff down, so that even if you haven't read the whole book, you can get some of it filtered through me.

Here's the thing. This book quite literally changed my life. I don't think I would be married right now if I hadn't read it.

The book is focused on marriage, but most of the principles are applicable for any long-term, intimate relationship that you want to maintain; for example, with family members or close friends.

I haven't reread the book for the purposes of this review; this way, you only get the parts of it that actually stuck with me over the several years it's been since I read it.

Positive Interactions

The most important thing in relationships is having positive interactions with the other person. In particular, the ratio of positive to negative interaction needs to be good.

This means that your relationship problems are not what you think they are. I.e.: if you are having a problem with your partner where they aren't taking out the trash, maybe the solution is not related to the trash at all, but instead is that you need to hang out with them and have long conversations about your favorite subject instead. How could this possibly help? Well, the more you like your partner, the less you will care about the trash thing.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't try to solve such problems at the object-level. But sometimes, especially when the problem isn't really solvable long-term (you and your partner might just have different standards of cleanliness, or different ideas about certain things), it's most important just to be patient enough to get past it. And for that, you need to have a generally positive relationship that brings you happiness.

Bids

There are two kinds of "bids" that I recall from the book.

The first is bids for deescalation. It's inevitable that two people in a close relationship will have some disagreements. If you're in a conflict, though, it's possible to try to reduce the tension in the discussion; for example, by making a joke, or temporarily deflecting to a more neutral subject, or even making a concession. One partner can make these bids to try to improve the situation; it's important for the second partner to accept these for what they are: loving attempts to help defuse the situation, even if they don't fully solve the problem.

The second is bids for attention. Sometimes your partner will just want to share something with you, along the lines of "Look at that bird outside the window!" It's important both to make and to (usually) respond to these bids, rather than rejecting your partner's attempts to get closer.

Love Maps

Knowing things about your loved one makes them feel cared for and appreciated, and it helps you empathize with and talk to them. Gottman refers to this as maintaining a "love map" in your head about your loved one.

Some examples: what projects they're doing at work, the names of their coworkers, which of their coworkers they like and dislike, what hobbies they've been most interested in lately, how their favorite video game works, facts about their latest interest, who their friends are, and so on.

There are different ways to maintain your love maps. Gottman recommends talking to your loved one daily. The easiest way to do this is the simple question "How was your day?" The important thing is actually listening, sympathizing, and remembering what they say. He recommends a "poor baby" approach, for this one part of your day -- no matter what they say, regardless of whether they were actually in the right or not, just sympathize with the difficulty they faced.

Date Night

To maintain your ratio of positive interactions, build your love maps, and generally stay connected with the other person, Gottman recommends two things:

• First, a daily session in which each person takes turns talking about their day, and listening nonjudgmentally to the other person about their own day.
• Next, a weekly date night in which you take time to focus on each other and talk.

My spouse and I originally started doing a date night as a sort of relationship last-resort. Our goal was to check in, ask the other person "How are we doing?", and try to steer things back on track if they weren't going well; kind of like a corporate 1:1.

What we didn't realize is that having this time to just talk to each other was part of what our relationship needed. We weren't spending enough time together to maintain our ratio of positive to negative interactions, or know what was going on with the other person, or form shared dreams and plans for the future.

The book also has a number of specific exercises to help talk you through what parts of your relationship are positive and important, targeted towards couples going through difficulty. I think we used a few of these, but the most important part was instituting dedicated time to spend together; having a specific time to talk about difficulties was important, but it was also important just to get in some pair-bonding.

I highly recommend reading the book if you're interested in getting more depth on these concepts.