If you’ll allow a food metaphor, Perel’s style is about hunger as the secret sauce that makes a meal delicious. Gottman’s is about arriving home from work and cooking dinner with your partner, having a glass of wine while you cook, feeding each other all the strawberries you meant to keep for dessert, then sitting down together and savoring every mouthful. In the Perel style, you come to your partner with your fire already stoked. In the Gottman style, you stoke each other’s fire.
