The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert, Revised and Updated

Even if you are just dating, it's a must read, especially with today's confusing messages of the way a man should be.

When I got this book I thought my marriage was doomed. After reading half of it, in a weeks time our relationhip/friendship has never been better! My husband is not much for participating, but I have found ways to "compliment" him in areas he's not so great at. I put a question in his lunch box with my answer for him to read. He comes home now and kisses me and tells me thank you for the note. Affection was an area of concern for me, and it's working. I've also realized how much of the issue was mine not his. I know a lot of ladies will roll their eyes at that comment but I believe taking responsibility where it's due. NOt saying our issues stemed just from me, but I was creating the issues I had with my husband. I would "flood" him with, "why dont' you talk to me?", "Why aren't you more open to sharing with me?" Why this why that and I would keep doing it until we had a HUGE blow out and he would start "Stonewalling" and then I would think he didn't care, then it continued on and I would keep it going by yelling at him, telling him he was an insensitive jerk.... The other day he came home from MI, and instead of "flooding" him with questions, I showed him how excited I was to see him, and didn't ask him anything. I decided to wait for him to open up because I know he's not much of a talker, another way I "comlimented" him and before I knew it he just opened up and told me so much more than me trying to DRAG it out of him. I have also realized just how "normal" of a couple we are. I thought we didn't spend enough time together. In fact, we have a better relationship than most couples now I believe. When I was taking the questionairs, we were passing with flying colors and I was confused at first and thought this wasn't right. But we are doing very well I've been realizing. I would freak out because our marriage wasn't like the movies, and didn't realize.... we have a great friendship! We "turn towards eachother" more than I thought.... and my husband does a lot of the turning..... My purception of what I thought a "normal" marriage was, was so dystorted and this book helped me to realize just how GREAT and LOVING, and just how WONDERFUL of a friend my husband is. I love him even more and appreciate all the effort he puts into our marriage now. My eyes have been opened. We've been through so much with not much of a dating life (pregnant after 6 months of knowing eachother), striving to get our credit together to buy a house, bought a house, not even a year later my husband was laid off, we lost the house in a short sale (I feel very lucky for that), moving from MI where all of our family is to AL, to being robbed 4 times in less than a year, and getting back into a house.... I'm PROUD to say we've been through this and we've gotten through it and are still getting through it and we still haven't lost eachother. I've realized what a great friend he's been to me through all of this. I love you sweetie. And thank you to Mr Gottman, this book is amazing, and I also loved how he wasn't sexist. He points out throught the book that a husband and wife both should do this, not "what a wife should do to save their marriage" Which frustrates me to no end. He was very clear about both sexes working together, but that its also not a competition. LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK I highly recommend it. You're eyes will be opened.

I thought this book was good on a practical level for marriage, especially dealing with how couples fight and otherwise get along in marriage.If you are interested in this book, probably the best advice I could give you would be to check it out of the library first (if it's not at your own library location, many will reserve it at an affiliate library and ship it to yours for free), read it, and purchase it if you think it's really useful for you on a daily basis. That's what I did, and what I generally do with most books (usually they're books on health or computer programs) because I got sick of purchasing, and getting stuck with, books I ultimately found useless by the time I finished reading them. I thought this was a good enough to purchase, especially since I got the paperback version from the "New and Used" section for around $10 including shipping.I've taken marriage courses and read marriage books which describe the ideal of what a marriage should be--the core values that should be shared, the goals, etc. Those were great on an inspirational level but not very helpful when you're in the middle of an argument and have no clue how to get past some recurring problem. This book gave me some guidelines for uncovering underlying causes of tension in a marriage which may not be obvious when the discussion may seem to be going in the opposite direction.For me, simply purchasing the book after having read it for free from the library makes a statement that I found it useful enough to set aside a little extra cash and space on my bookshelf. There are a few things I don't necessarily agree with wholeheartedly which I will mention, but overall I took enough good information and techniques from the book to purchase it.First of all, there are a lot of exercises in the book, many of which seem useful on some level depending on what a couple's difficulties are. Toward the end of the book it felt a little like exercise overkill; for that reason I personally would suggest picking and choosing what to attempt based on a couple's foremost needs, and leaving the rest for consideration at a later time (i.e., if you generally feel like your each other's best friends but when you argue it gets explosive, try to figure out how to argue better by trying those exercises).Secondly, Gottman uses the term "Flooding" to describe when one partner freezes up during an argument. I found the use of that term pretty disconcerting, as it is both used gynecologically to describe a woman's overly-abundant menstrual flow and is used in psychology to describe an immersion method to get a person used to an uncomfortable situation (a totally different definition than Gottman's layman use in the book). Sorry if those descriptions are a little graphic for a review, but that should let you know my degree of cringing everytime I read the word used Gottman's way.Overall, I thought it was a good, decent book. I hope this review was helpful in your decision to read it.

If you're struggling in your relationship, this book may be able to help you. If you, like us, are (were) constantly fighting, you are probably undergoing lots of unnecessary stress in your life. For my husband and I, it got to the point where we felt the stresses and strains of our constant fighting were almost certainly taking a toll on our mental and physical health. We knew we loved each other, we knew we wanted to be together, we just didn't know how to make it work amicably.We started the book two years ago and worked through the first two principles. We had those two nailed, thought we were good and put the book down for a couple of years. Although things were better for a few months, slowly, over time things deteriorated again. In reality, we hadn't yet gotten to the chapters that dealt with the problem areas in our marriage, so nothing was different over the long term, and no new understanding had been gained.Recently, tensions were high from constant arguing, and both of us felt that we had done lots of damage to our relationship from years of arguing and didn't see a way out. It pains me to say that divorce was considered by both of us as a way out of this mess. I combed through the book again, skipping ahead to the chapter that best applied to us: gridlock. There it was, the information we needed to understand our conflicts and make them easier to handle.Basically, I grew up in a house where shouting led to painful (drunken) character attacks and volatile behaviour, and he grew up in a house where shouting was no big deal. So, when he shouted, I shut down, and all discussions were over. He felt shut out and hurt, judged and hated, and I felt damaged and afraid. Realizing that we are both different, and that he doesn't set out to hurt anyone when he yells, allowed me to accept him as he was, and turned the outbursts in comical situations that quickly are forgotten. Nobody is perfect: he is loyal, loving, devoted and hardworking, and I can't throw all that out the window because he doesn't ask the kids in a quiet voice to pick up their markers etc.Best of all, my kids take their cue from me, and when dad raises his voice, they listen without cowering, love him anyway, and accept him as he is. We have all gotten closer as a result.We still have a lot of work to do, but I feel that this book has pointed us in the right direction and that our house has felt so much lighter since. Everyone deserves a loving and harmonious relationship, and if you're struggling, remember to put as much effort into your marriage as you put into anything else you care deeply about, and to get help with skills and tools you might not have had modeled for your self, but which you can learn! This book covers all the areas you need to strengthen for a happy marriage, so you too can be one of those annoyingly happy and sweet couples (that I always secretly envied)!Good luck and thanks for reading.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert  is an excellent bit of research turned into a practical marriage therapy guide. The funniest part about the whole thing: Why do we in modern day America take timeless principles that our Grandparents knew so well, throw them out the window as myth, but accept more openly the principles in this book because they are based on scientific research? I like the fact that Dr. Gottman did the research, don't get me wrong. It further drives home the point. We probably would take it as a bit of fluff otherwise. The larger themes The Seven Principles revealed to me were cultural. Tied up in our cultural woes we find millions of selfish, emotionally unintelligent divorced and lonely couples.Dr. Gottman refers to the "Four Horseman of the Marriage Apocalypse": Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling. These are now deeply entrenched in American culture and taught now by example in our homes, openly displayed in the media and heralded as positive traits among young people and their peers. The 60's philosophers and cultural changers threw the baby out with the bathwater. Civil Rights issues and the Vietnam War were the bathwater, family values and principles as demonstrated in Dr. Gottman's research were the baby. Of course, marriages were not necessarily all happy in traditional America. Dr. Gottman addresses progress culturally in some areas and does criticize certain traditional beliefs about husband and wife roles. However, when we see young men on killing sprees, suicide rates up in young people and emotionally and physically abandoned children as never before, the death of love and values in American marriages overwhelms any evidence presented by the Progressives supporting misguided notions of the evil traditional American family.The book is also a practical guide. I have been happily married to my wonderful wife for 24 years. My first and only successful marriage. My oldest daughter is now embarking in a few months on her own marriage adventure. I am buying this book as required reading and exercises for both Bride and Groom before they get married. I believe she and her husband-to-be are emotionally intelligent enough to marry- she of course takes after her mother. The Seven Principles are timeless in the sense that couples of all ages, development and varying success levels can apply them. We picked up so much that we are applying right now even after all these years. Highly recommend this book to anyone. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert