The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert

So if you begin a discussion that way, you might as well pull the plug, take a breather, and start over.

Betrayal is, fundamentally, any act or life choice that doesn’t prioritize the commitment and put the partner “before all others.

A harsh start-up simply dooms you to failure.

“enduring vulnerabilities,

“positive sentiment override,

In emotionally intelligent marriages, I hear a wide range of successful repair attempts. Each person has his or her own approach. Olivia and Nathaniel stick out their tongues; other couples laugh or smile or say they’re sorry. Even an irritated “Hey, stop yelling at me” or “You’re getting off the topic” can defuse a tense situation. All such repair

In unhappy marriages, a feedback loop develops between the four horsemen and the failure of repair attempts. The more contemptuous and defensive the couple are with each other, the more flooding occurs, and the harder it is to hear and respond to a repair. And since the repair is not heard, the contempt and defensiveness just get heightened, making

That’s why I can often predict a divorce by hearing only one discussion between a husband and wife. The failure of repair attempts is an accurate marker for an unhappy future. The presence of the four horsemen alone predicts divorce with an 82 percent accuracy rate. But when you add in the failure of repair attempts, the accuracy rate reaches into

Too often, couples begin to seek help for their marriage after they’ve already hit troubled waters. The warning signs were almost always there early on if they had known what to look for. You can see the seeds of trouble in (1) what partners actually say to each other (the prevalence of harsh start-up, the four horsemen, and the unwillingness to ac