Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

by John M. Gottman

Not making their partner a priority ~ Not keeping promises ~ Not being there when their partner is hurting or sick ~ Lying, having secrets, infidelity

See your differences as opportunities to learn more about each other and create a shared value system for trust and commitment.

I commit to choosing you each and every day and to showing you that our relationship is a priority. I also commit to having seven more dates and conversations.

Growing up, she never heard her parents fight but whenever things got difficult, her mom would gather up Marie and her brother and sister and leave the house to check into a hotel.

she had internalized the idea that all conflict was to be avoided and if there ever was a fight, it meant the relationship was over.

I don’t go looking for fights, but I don’t run away from them anymore either.

Even when we disagree, we’re still on the same team, trying to find a way to understand each other and work it out.”

Many people think that conflict is pointless and harmful. Not true. Conflict is necessary because we inevitably run into speed bumps in our ability to love one another, and when we hit one of these speed bumps we need to slow down and proceed with care.

Mutual understanding: This is the healthiest and most productive goal of all conflict.

None of us are perfect communicators,

some set of problems is going to be there no matter who the other partner might be.

Solvable Problems: These are situational problems.

Solvable doesn’t mean without work. It takes effort and action to keep the agreements you make with each other for the solvable problems.

Perpetual Problems: These are problems that center on fundamental differences you have in your personalities or lifestyle preferences.

At the core of managing conflict, especially when it comes to a perpetual problem, is accepting your partner for who they are.

If you find that the two of you get more and more polarized, more extreme, and more uncompromising, you’re gridlocked.

Eventually this will lead to emotional distance between the two of you, and this is the real relationship killer—not anger, or arguments, or conflict in general—but the distance you let it create between you.

Conflict can bring you closer, if you choose to approach it as a way to know your partner more.

couples who are genuinely happy in their marriage or relationship handle their conflicts in gentle, positive ways.

They listen to their partner’s perspective, they seek to understand their partner, and they work together to find a compromise that works for both.

Master couples stayed together happily. Disaster couples split up, or stayed together unhappily.

When it came to conflict, the masters always knew how to repair the damage done during a regrettable incident.

The goal here is not to once again argue for your reality or prove that you’re right and they’re wrong; it’s to understand what reality looks like to the other person.

Step 1: Each person takes a turn to talk about what they were feeling during the fight:

Step 2: Each person should talk about how they saw the situation and their perspective

Validate each other’s realities. Validating doesn’t mean agreeing.

Step 3: Triggers.

Triggers never go away, they endure.

Step 4: Accept responsibility and own up to your part in the fight.

Step 5: Discuss how you both might do things differently the next time.

Relationship conflict is an opportunity to get to know your partner better and to develop deeper intimacy as you talk about and work through your differences.

Don’t make your partner the bad guy. There is no winner in a healthy conflict; there is only understanding and resolution or acceptance.

Don’t criticize or judge your partner, or believe that their viewpoint is wrong and yours is right. Both of your perspectives are valid.

Recognize when a problem is solvable and when it’s not. Not all conflict can, or needs to, be resolved.

I commit to accepting you completely and embracing our differences. When we have conflict, I’ll seek to understand your feelings and point of view about the issue, and will manage our conflict as skillfully as possible. When regrettable incidents happen, I’ll seek to repair the

damage through the process we have discussed.

“It’s kind of this weird role reversal, because there’s a stereotype that women are the innocent virgins and the man guides them sexually,

“It helps to talk about how things have changed. Sometimes I worry about it, and I wonder if you’re

going to leave me for some younger woman who isn’t tired all the time and can have sex four times a day.”

“I can go without sex, but I still want to feel connected as a couple and not just as parents. I want to kiss and flirt with you. I want you to tell me how sexy and handsome I am to you. I would never leave you for a younger woman who could have sex four times a day. I promise.”

For all the couples that shared their sex date conversations with us, humor was a big part of the discussion. Talking about sex doesn’t have to be uncomfortable or awkward or serious.

And how much sex is “normal” in a long-term relationship?

What’s normal is whatever works for you and your partner.

It’s a myth that sex is or should be deeply romantic, with lit candles, soft music, and hours of leisurely lovemaking.

To begin your relationship or marriage saying we’re going to have sex every single day is a setup for failure. Life shows up,

and nothing is a greater measure of just how life is showing up than your sexuality.

couples with young children tended to spend very little time with one another.

Thinking about Sex: Men think about sex more than women. Fifty-four percent of men compared to 19 percent of women think about sex every day or several times a day.

Frequency: In our research of couples’ sex lives, we found that ideally men want sex four to five times a week, and women one to two times.

Fantasies: Men have more explicit sexual fantasies and women have mor...