bottom can be revived with the right kind of help. Sadly, most
marriages at this stage get the wrong kind. Well-meaning therapists
will deluge the couple with advice about negotiating their differences
and improving their communication. At one time I would have done
the same. At first, when I figured out how to predict divorce, I
thought I had found the key to saving marriages. All that was
necessary, I presumed, was to teach people how to argue without
being overridden by the four horsemen and without getting flooded.
Then their repair attempts would succeed, and they could work out
their differences.
But like so many experts before me, I was wrong. I was not able
to crack the code to saving marriages until I started to analyze what
went right in happy marriages. After intensely studying happily
married couples for as long as sixteen years, I now know that the key
to reviving or divorce-proofing a relationship is not in how you
handle disagreements but in how you are with each other when
you're not fighting. So although my Seven Principles will also guide
you in coping with conflict, the foundation of my approach is to
strengthen the friendship that is at the heart of any marriage.
ann
(Ann)
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