Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work

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Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Dr. John Gottman 1.

Enhance your love maps: Get to know each other, including significant others; dreams; stresses; beliefs and tastes. 2. Nurture your fondness and admiration: Acceptance, appreciation, and remember what attracted you from the beginning. 3. Turn toward each other instead of away: Spend time together, talk, and do things together. 4. Let your partner influence you: Respect for each other. 5. Solve your solvable problems: a. Soften your startup (complaints not criticism) b. Learn to make and receive repair attempts c. Soothe yourself and each other (calm physiological response of flooding) d. Compromise e. Be tolerant of each others faults 6. Overcome gridlock: Signs of gridlock: a. The conflict makes you feel rejected by your partner b. You keep talking about it but make no headway c. You become entrenched in your positions and are unwilling to budge d. When you discuss the subject, you end up feeling more frustrated and hurt e. Your conversations about the problem are devoid of humor, amusement or affection f. You become even more unbudgeable over time, which leads to you to vilify each other during these conversations g. This vilification makes you all the more rooted in your position and polarized, more extreme in your view, and all the less willing to compromise h. Eventually you disengage from each other emotionally 7. Create shared meaning: Develop shared goals in life, rituals, roles and symbols. Create a culture for your family.

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