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

by John M. Gottman

When you are able to compromise on a solvable problem in a way that leaves you both satisfied, you prevent the issue from turning into a damaging, gridlocked conflict. But these arguments can still leave scars, even if you get past the issues that triggered them. I call this residual damage an “emotional injury.” William Faulkner said it best in Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” We can revisit the past because it still lives in our bodies in the present. If emotional injuries aren’t addressed, they tend to become constant irritants—like a stone in your shoe that you keep walking on. People tend to ruminate about these incidents, and emotional distance can build up over time. It is perfectly normal to have past emotional injuries that need talking about, or “processing.” If this has happened to you when you disagreed or hurt each other, the culprit is not what you were fighting about but how you were fighting. The following in-depth exercise gets to the bottom of this by examining what tends to go on between you during a disagreement. Analyzing this together will afford you a deeper understanding of how you are each experiencing your arguments. This knowledge will help make your future conflicts less emotionally bruising.