Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

by John M. Gottman

it’s our commitment to being curious rather than correct that allows us to turn toward instead of away from one another in the moments of disagreement.

Successful long-term relationships are created through small words, small gestures, and small acts. A lifetime of love is created every single day you are together.

You can spend a lifetime being curious about the inner world of your partner, and being brave enough to share your own inner world, and never be done discovering all there is to know about each other.

Love is an action even more than a feeling. It requires intention and attention, a practice we call attunement.

The words you choose matter. Your tone of voice matters. Even your facial expressions matter.

In a relationship, commitment is a choice we make every single day, over and over again.

Vulnerability creates trust, and trust is the oxygen your relationship needs to breathe.

Trust is the backdrop to any relationship. It’s an action word—both a verb and a noun. Trust happens in the little moments when we show our partner we are there for them and they do the same for us. Trust is built in small moments of attuning to our partner, and listening like a friend and ally when our partner is experiencing a negative emotion—sadness, anger, disgust, or fear, even if those emotions are about us. In all of our decisions we’re thinking of maximizing our partner’s benefits as well as our own. Mutual trust rests in the belief that both of us are thinking for two. We aren’t negotiating for the best deal for just ourselves. We’re always considering the cost of any choice for our partner, too.