What Makes Marriage Work By John Gottman Analysis

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About Dr. John Gottman’s Article “What Makes Marriage Work” 1. Why do you think Gottman wrote an article on marriage? In my opinion, Gottman considers a marriage being the basis, on which our society is built. However, there are not many people understand what is the basis of the marriage. In his opinion, many marital counselors operate not on knowledge that true and statistically proven, but on marriage myths. Thus, Gottman wrote the article where he presented his scientifically analyzed observations of the married couples and proposed the rules of solid marriage. 2. What are the characteristics of good or “healthy” marriage? The main condition of a good marriage, in Gottman’s opinion, is a friendship between husband and wife. It is a really a healthy marriage if the spouses feel admiration and fondness towards each other. Fondness and admiration prevents them from expressing and feeling disgust while arguing. In a good marriage one spouse supports dreams, interests and aspirations of another, but without sacrificing one’s own. Gottman advocates the equality between spouses in everything. He also recommends keeping balance between everyday attention and big romantic gestures; in his opinion, everyday small but nice things work better than grandiose but rare romantic gestures. In general, the characteristics of the “healthy” marriage are following: …show more content…

In a troubled marriage spouses are stonewalling and casting blame or pretending to be a victim and flooding with the bursts of emotions. The marriage is failing when the spouses stop listening to and trying to understand the needs of each other. The worst case scenario, when the spouses do not care anymore about hurting feelings of each other; it raises the amount of resentment and insults to the point where the spouses stop being partners and become sworn enemies (Gottman,

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