Today’s marriage tip comes from Gottman’s The 7 Principles For Making Marriage Work. This book is full of fantastic marriage tips, so I’ll probably talk more about his research in the future, but one little tidbit that has stuck with me from his book was from his chapter about predicting divorce. He says if a conversation starts with a harsh start up, one laden with sarcasm or criticism, it will almost certainly end on a negative note. I found this statistic especially instructive:
“96% of the time, you can predict the outcome of a conversation based on the first three minutes of the interaction.”
Isn’t that interesting?
If a conversation starts with contempt, it will end with contempt. This is why it is so crucial to start difficult conversations lovingly. Nothing will get solved if you try to talk about difficult subjects when you’re full of anger.
This is why companionship inventory is so so useful. Start with prayer together, then compliments, THEN difficult issues. If you start the conversation with love, you’ll be WAY more likely to end it with love.
