John M. Gottman Quotes

Which scientific puzzle confounds the genius of Hawking? "Women," he said. "They are a complete mystery.

In a good relationship, people get angry, but in a very different way. The Marriage Masters see a problem a bit like a soccer ball. They kick it around. It's 'our' problem.

I believe we're going to find that respect and affection are essential to all relationships working and contempt destroys them.

If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn't have a job if he was any smarter.

A hallmark of domestic violence is a man feeling threatened by a woman's friends and attempting to control or limit a woman's social contacts, or to isolate her socially.

Admit when you're wrong. Shut up when you're right.

When a couple gets to the last stage, one or both partners may have an affair. But an affair is usually a symptom of a dying marriage, not the cause. The end of that marriage could have been predicted long before either spouse strayed.

There are many marital therapists who have high expectations for what is possible in a marriage...I am not opposed to such views, but I personally take a different one. I am a "plumber"... I have often described my goal as fostering the "good enough marriage". I am likely to think a marriage is good enough if the two spouses choose to have coffee and pastries on a Saturday afternoon and really enjoy the conversation, even if they don't heal each other's childhood wounds, or don't always have wall-socket, mind-blowing, skyrocket sex.

I liken an affair to the shattering of a Waterford crystal vase. You can glue it back together, but it will never be the same again.

(...) I also believe that most crabby people can change by making a conscious choice to react to the world in a different way. The key is to scan your environment regularly for things and people to appreciate rather than to criticize. In so doing, you create a new climate of praise and gratitude in your life. Instead of getting bogged down in people's faults and mistakes, you get swept up in a fruitful search for reasons to say "thank you.

Our gridlocked conflicts contain the potential for great intimacy between us. But we have to feel safe enough to pull our dreams out of the closet. When we wear them, our partner may glimpse how beautiful we are - fragile but shimmering. Then, with understanding, our partners may join us in being dream catchers, rather than dream shredders.

Thus, the critical dimension in understanding whether a marriage will work or not, becomes the extent to which the male can accept the influence of the woman he loves and become socialized in emotional communication.

Bid for connection: Each of our daily interactions with another person.