Book Review: Gottman and Silver

Summary

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Gottman and Silver (2004) focuses on why marriages work and what couples can do to strengthen and support their marriages. Emotional intelligence plays a big role in the strategies highlighted by the authors, as one of the keys to a successful marriage is the ability of both partners to listen and understand one another. Happy couples also learn to keep negative thoughts about their spouse from overwhelming them; they focus on positive thoughts and do not let negativity drive their feelings and actions.

The seven principles defined in the book are 1) use love maps to know your partner because through knowledge comes understanding and acceptance; 2) nurture fondness and admiration for your spouse; 3) turn toward your spouse instead of away from your spouse to prevent negativity from driving you apart; 4) avoid the pitfalls that lead to divorce by focusing on the problems you can solve instead of on the problems you cannot solve; 5) be flexible rather than rigid toward your spouse and allow your spouse to shape and influence you; 6) be willing to negotiate and compromise so as to overcome inevitable gridlocks; and 7) establish shared meaningi.e., create a life and love between yourselves that you can both enjoy and appreciate.

The main thrust of the book is that a happy marriage is not born of fairy-tale romance: it takes giving of the self. As a spouse, one should try to understand who ones partner is and who ones partner wants to be. Apply gentleness to all of your interactions with your spouse, whether you are paying a compliment or compromising to overcome gridlock. Interactions should not be abrasive like sandpaper or full of fury like a hurricane. They should be gentle and kind, like a fine spring rain. The best marriages are those in which spouses honor and respect...

In this spirit of selfless giving, one will find, however, that much is received from ones spouse in return.

Response

I understand completely what Gottman and Silver (2004) mean when they note, I can predict whether a couple will divorce after watching and listening to them for just five minutes (p. 5). I have seen this myself. It is a certain quality of interaction between the two spouses that conveys everything about how they view themselves and their significant...

…can do more of is to be gentler, as the authors recommend. I am always using forceful tones with my partner, as though I were making grand pronouncements from on high. This is not the right way to go about nurturing a relationship. So the first action step I am going to take today is use gentle tones when speaking to my partner: no more blustering my way through conversations or letting my partner know my disappointment when I am making a compromise. I will remember to be gentle in everything because in gentleness is love.

The second action step I can take is to make a love map and make sure I know my partner as well as I think I do. This is a great action step because it will get me thinking more about my other and less about myself. It will get more oriented in the right direction in terms of making this relationship work.

The third action step I can do after the love map is to identify some things that we could do that we would both enjoyand if I cannot think of anything then I will pick something that my partner enjoys and make an effort to learn to enjoy it as well. This is the beginning of creating shared meaning…