The Relationship Artist: Staying Together

....dateline....May 23, 2008.....U.K...

Frank, 100, and Anita, 99, today celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary, equalling the record for England’s longest-ever marriage....
The pair met in 1926 at a YMCA dance in their home town of Plymouth. They married two years later, on May 26, 1928, and after the register office ceremony, popped to the cinema to catch a Charlie Chaplin film.

Most of us have wondered at one time or another (in one relationship or another) if that someone special was going to be "the one." While no one can be 100% sure where a couple's romantic future will lead, one researcher claims he can determine a couple's long-term prospects with a wildly high degree of accuracy.

John Gottman, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington, has been observing couples for three decades now. In one landmark study, he recorded 15 minutes of conversations from 700 couples, comparing the number of positive interactions they displayed toward each other (such as smiles or compliments) to the number of negative ones (eye-rolls, sarcasm, or criticism). From that data, Gottman determined that healthy couples generally adhere to a "magic ratio" of 5 to 1.

That is, a minimum of five positive comments or gestures for every negative one. Ten years later, Dr. Gottman and his colleagues checked back with the couples they recorded to see who were still together. They found that their predictions were 94% accurate!

So, while you're probably not going to sit down and record yourself with your sweetie (and even Gottman doesn't suggest you do), what you can do to assess your relationship's chances is try to stay "generally positive." With that idea in mind, the ratio should take care of itself.

"Couples who avoid saying every critical thought when discussing touchy topics are consistently the happiest" according to the Love Doctor. This doesn't mean keeping your feelings to yourself though, Gottman explains. It means reframing the way you present them. So instead of saying: "We're not staying at your parent's this Christmas, are we? They drive me nuts," try this: "I'd love it if we stayed at a hotel over Christmas, it would make relaxing much easier for both of us."

Tips On How To Make Your Love Last....

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