Marriage Book

A friend of mine (getting her doctorate of psychology) recommended the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman. This guy has done scientific research of couples since the 70's. He can predict with over 90% accuracy whether or not a couple will divorce after watching them converse for 15 minutes. Amazing! His research has revealed why marriages are happy and what leads to divorce. These are things that aren't the usual answers either- the key isn't communication or understanding our differences. He looks for several basic things and if they are or are not present in how a couple relates with each other. The four main negative things couples express as they converse are critism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. There are also good things to look for and his book outlines it all and gives exercises for increasing the good and cutting out the bad. I'm about half way through and finding this to be very interesting and informative. Even strong marriages would benefit from this book, so I wanted to pass it along.