review: the seven principles for making marriage work by john m. gottman

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When I say that I want to get married soon, people usually then ask whether I'm religious (I'm not) and then look at me like I'm a time-traveler from the 1950s.

I appreciate your concern, but don't worry. I promise I'm doing my due dilligence. I just read The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, the canonical textbook for Marriage 101! (You think that's a joke, but Gottman totally wrote The Seven Principles to be a Textbook For Marriage Class. There are worksheets and exercises, even quizzes so you can grade your understanding.)

The Seven Principles does its job as a 101 book. But if you, like me, are +2.5 standard deviations on the "thinks about marriage" scale, most of the book will wash over you as a stream of generally true things with intermittent interruptions to explain that these true things have been PROVEN in the LOVE LAB where we can PREDICT the fate of your marriage using SCIENCE

…sorry, where were we? Oh, right. For someone who spends a lot of time thinking about marriage and how to do it well, The Seven Principles generally echoes what you already know. It's probably because the titular seven principles, as well as Gottman's four horsemen of marriage apocalypse, have been regurgitated in relationship advice slop listicles to the point of ubiquity.

Still, there is a reason why relationship advice draws from Gottman's frameworks — he has a good sense for taxonomizing subtle relationship dynamics.

For example, I know that whenever a conflict-shaped thing happens, my partner asks himself "is there at least one universe where you meant well?" and concludes that he lives in that universe if it exists. I notice myself doing something similar, too. Gottman calls this positive sentiment override — having enough positive feelings about your partner such that slightly negative interactions don't have large impacts on your relationship. The positive spin on every action makes it easier for you to give your partner the benefit of the doubt.

Gottman also distinguishes between two types of problems: solveable problems and perpetual problems. A solveable problem is a self-contained problem, often logistical in nature, that (as its name suggests) can be solved and put to rest while a perpetual problem derives from fundamental differences between partners, which should be approached with an eye towards compromise rather than resolution. The distinction helps me see why certain fights with my partner stay self-contained, while others blow up — nonsensical fights over "nothing" are often perpetual problems masquerading as solveable ones.

Again, it's not like I didn't know these things, but it is useful to have names for them. I could see myself using Gottman's frameworks to better understand and describe the components of my relationship for years to come. They have aged well and remain remarkably relevant despite the quarter-century and Internet and gender wars that have all happened since the book's publication.

Now, the frameworks may be timeless, but the book itself is not. The Seven Principles carries some charming (?) artifacts of its time — "I believe the emotionally intelligent husband is the next step in social evolution", for one.

But in its age, The Seven Principles also has a kind of reverence for marriage that I respect. And I hope to bring this reverence to my own marriage when it comes.