Gottman's 'Forumla': A Summary

1. Like many of my classmates, the main lesson I took away from Gottman's book was that relationships are built on friendship. It is a terribly cheesy sentiment, but in reality, it makes sense. You wouldn't want to spend the rest of your life with someone you only had a sexual attraction to or even someone you did not like at all. Coupling friendships and relationships mean that the foundation of the relationship is strong. Gottman also focuses on the fact that if a realtionship has a strong friendship, it is more rooted in a mutual respect and trust for each other which makes sense. From where I am from, so many people hop into relationships quickly, sometimes after only knowing each other for a few weeks. Sure, they have good communication, they might even love each other, but do they even know each other? I argue that you don't. The friendship and knowing another person's flaws and strengths and how you couple them, is what really makes a relationship make the long term.
I think that Gottman's "forumla" for divorce is very important and informative. There is all this talk about kind of laying it out as is in a relationship, almost dumping your problems on the partner and just hoping they know how to fix it. Or to have a big blowout fight and get all the issues out at once and then pick up the pieces. That's how I have always seen it done. However, Gottman points out the fact that these types of arguments are not effective. Arguing is good, it shows that people have beliefs and that couples are willing to hold true who they are as an individual, but arguing should not be a sport. They can't understand each other that way and it just becomes lose/lose situation. Gottman stress that couples should work together on issues and take them little by little. Understanding is