Can you predict whether a relationship will last?Relationship psychologist John Gottman can. Across six studies, Gottman has predicted whether couples will stay together or divorce with up to 94% accuracy.His predictions aren’t based on couples’ sexuality, income, or family structure.Rather, he looks at how partners act and react to each other, noting things like body language, tone of voice, and even physiological factors such as heart rate.Here are a few telltale signs he uses to separate the “masters” from the “disasters” of marriage.

Gottmans predictions

Couples who show signs of being in “fight or flight mode”, racing heart (>100 bpm), fast blood flow, high adrenaline… are more likely to split up.These couples are preparing to attack and be attacked, even when they appear calm and talk about mundane things.

Fight Or Flight

Gottman also uses verbal cues to assess relationship health: do couples criticize rather than complain?Do they speak to each other with contempt or stonewall the other person (ignoring them completely)?These are all signs of a relationship in distress.By observing markers of relationship distress, Jon Gottman can predict with 94% accuracy whether a relationship will fail

Complaint Vs Criticism

what can we do to prevent breakups, and even strengthenour relationships?In relationships, we often make seemingly mundane comments.For example, a husband may remark to his wife about a pretty bird outside the window.Your partner may share a dream or a memory from your last vacation. These are called “bids” for attention.And how we react to these bids, Gottman says, powerfully predicts relationship success.

The Key? “Bids”

In a 1990 study, Gottman studied how 130 married couples responded to each others’ bids.Six years later, he compared the behaviors of those still together and the couples that had since divorced.Couples who stayed together had responded to their partners’ bids an average of 86% of the time.The couples who divorced only responded to their partner an average of 33% of the time.

Research About Bids 

Gottman gives an example from his own marriage. One night, his wife, Julie, was unloading the dryer and grumbling to herself.Considering that this might be a “bid” for connection, Gottman asked her what was wrong. He turned toward her bid.Julie answered that she hated folding laundry. Gottman then offered to fold the laundry for her instead.In doing so, Gottman signaled that he cared about what she was thinking and created an opportunity to connect.Gottman turned on jazz music, reminding his wife that they had not been to a jazz club in a while. They then spontaneously decided to date.

Why responding to bids is so important in romantic relationships

Small moments like these add up to perform an essential function in a relationship: funding a couple’s “emotional bank” or stockpile of goodwill.Even healthy, happy couples disagree and experience times of stress.But each time an individual chooses to “turn toward” their partner, they create trust and intimacy.And this emotional bank carries them through times of conflict and hardship.

Stockpile Of Love 

The infographic below highlights some of Dr. John Gottman’s most notable research findings on marriage and couple relationships.

Principles for Relationship Success

Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.

Erich Fr

Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.

...in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power-almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving. Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which "only" profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend energy on?

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

The landmark bestseller that changed the way we think about love: “Every line is packed with common sense, compassion, and realism” (Fortune). The Art of Loving is a rich and detailed guide to love—an achievement reached through maturity, practice, concentration, and courage. In the decades since the book’s release, its words and lessons continue to resonate. Erich Fromm, a celebrated psychoanalyst and social psychologist, clearly and sincerely encourages the development of our capacity for and understanding of love in all of its facets. He discusses the familiar yet misunderstood romantic love, the all-encompassing brotherly love, spiritual love, and many more. A challenge to traditional Western notions of love, The Art of Loving is a modern classic about taking care of ourselves through relationships with others by the New York Times–bestselling author of To Have or To Be? and Escape from Freedom. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

The Art of Loving

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Authenticity means the quality of being genuine and true (as per the Oxford Dictionary)</li><li class="ql-align-justify">You’re an authentic person if you know what you’re comfortable with, what you’re not comfortable with and you’re willing to take a stand for yourself and your beliefs.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">As and when you keep reaching outside your boundaries of comfort, your likes and dislikes keep changing and you get a deeper understanding of what you want / don’t want in your life.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Just be honest with yourself about your comfort zone and keep pushing it’s boundaries to achieve your desires.</li></ul>

Authenticity 

If you use hardness to resist force then both sides will break. Meet hardness with softness, so incoming force exhausts itself.

Someone can fall in love with you and then just as easily fall out of love. You can fall in love with someone and then fall out of love just as easily too. You can still care for someone whom you’re not in love with anymore. You can still love certain aspects about a person but not be in love with them.

About Love 

While it is easier to just hate the person for falling out of love with you it is much more stronger of you to be okay with it and move on. Your life shouldn’t stop or change its course just because one person decided to not play the role that you (alone or with your partner) had, at one point, thought both of you would play in your lives.

It’s Easier To Hate The One Who Falls Out Of Love

You should be your own sun but that doesn’t mean that you have to be extremely independent and build walls around yourself. You can find love in the most unusual places and people but you have to keep yourself open to the possibilities for that to happen.

Be Your Own Sun 

How do you know you’re being authentic, being your true self? This book helps you understand authenticity through the actions of various characters from different walks of life and their individual perspectives

Six strangers with one thing in common: their lives aren't always what they make them out to be. What would happen if they told the truth instead? Julian Jessop is tired of hiding the deep loneliness he feels. So he begins The Authenticity Project - a small green notebook containing the truth about his life. Leaving the notebook on a table in his friendly neighbourhood café, Julian never expects Monica, the owner, to track him down after finding it. Or that she'll be inspired to write down her own story. Little do they realize that such small acts of honesty hold the power to impact all those who discover the notebook and change their lives completely.

Love & Family

The Authenticity Project

Chasing a Dream"When you want something, all the universe conspire in helping you to achieve it."

Chasing A Dream!

Fearing Failure"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

Fearing Failure

Getting UpThe Secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

Own LifeEveryone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

Don't Explain!Don't waste your time with explanations; people only hear what they want to hear.

Own AnswersPeople never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.

Life's ParadoxWhen I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself.

Never Always WrongNothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Conquer FearDon't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart.

Simple ThingsThe simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

These are the quotes from the book- The Alchemist

For more such web stories click on the ET icon below.

10 inspiring life quotes by Paulo Coelho

Relational Ambivalence is the experience of contradictory thoughts and feelings—of love and hate, attraction and disgust, excitement and fear, contempt and envy—toward someone with whom we are in a relationship. We are taught that love is unconditional, passion is absolute, and that finding “the one” should clear us of all doubt. But relationships are never black and white. We learn that romantic love is supposed to flood us with certainty and thus there is no room for ambivalence. But ambivalence is as intrinsic to relationships as love itself.

Relational Ambivalence

We experience relational ambivalence with our parents and our siblings. We feel the tug between the parts of us that are forever entwined with them and the parts of us that want to separate ourselves.We experience it with our children, those beings who teach us a love we’ve never known as well as an unparalleled frustration that can incite harmful thoughts.We experience it with our friends, the ones we don’t really want to see but end up feeling obligated to invite to our wedding.

I Love To Hate You

When it comes to romantic relationships, “till death do us part” isn’t just a vow, it’s a plan. But what happens when plans change? What happens when we’re not meeting each others’ needs? What happens when we make mistakes or when the person we love behaves in a way we can’t tolerate? How about when the relationship gets tainted with lies, betrayal, or duplicity? We suddenly remember that love can hurt, and hurt deeply. And one of the most challenging experiences of ambivalence is when we find ourselves still loving the person who has hurt us deeply.

Till Death Do Us Part

Ambivalence is an uncomfortable feeling. Heavy with contradictions, it makes us doubt our feelings and choices. It can cause us to think we’ve failed or that, no matter what decision we make, we will fail. This discomfort makes us crave a definitive answer. So we force ourselves one way or the other. It usually falls along three lines:<ul><li>Option 1: We Leave. We cut and run. </li><li>Option 2: We justify staying even though it doesn’t feel right.</li><li>Option 3: We hold the ambivalence.</li></ul>

The Three Options

We often think we need to resolve the tension and come to a resolution. Sometimes we do (in abusive relationships, especially). In most situations, however, holding the ambivalence is, in itself, a form of radical acceptance.  This option asks us to sit with the feeling of ambivalence for a while. Stop trying to justify, stop negotiating, and just sit with it. Can we accept that we can wholly love a person without having to love every part of them?  Maybe it’s healthy to allow ourselves to really, really not like the person we love sometimes.

The Bottom Line

“Relational Ambivalence” is the experience of contradictory thoughts and feelings—of love and hate, attraction and disgust, excitement and fear, contempt and envy—toward someone with whom we are in a relationship. It exists in every relational configuration, but we put a lot of pressure on romantic love, in particular, to rise above it. Read more on how ambivalence shows up in your romantic relationships and the common responses to it.

Principles for Relationship Success

The Art of Loving

The Authenticity Project

10 inspiring life quotes by Paulo Coelho

Esther Perel's Blog - The Myth of Unconditional Love in Romantic Relationships

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