Week 9


I felt this quote applied well to this weeks questions. 


  1. According to Gottman, 69% of all problems in marriage are perpetual. Do you think this estimation is accurate? Why or why not?
I think it is accurate. People are so different, come from such different backgrounds. Outside circumstances don't change overnight, and people have outside issues they bring to the marriage. It is okay to realize that you can't fix everything and it is important to know when you can't fix it. 
  1. According to Gottman, whether a problem is solvable or perpetual, what is the underlying key to successfully address conflict?
How it is addressed. How each person approaches it. Do they approach it with an attitude of eagerness to work together with their spouse, or do they view it as a drudgery.  Happy couples are friends, basically, and part of that is having a willingness to make it work. 
  1. What are the repair attempts you use to put on the brakes and lower tension in the relationship with your spouse/someone close to you? Specifically, what do you do? What are the repair attempts used by your spouse/someone close to you?
I try to lighten the mood somehow, or I try to approach things from a different angle. My husband will try to have us take a break and find something we both enjoy to do to diffuse the mood. Sometimes one of us will feel that we can't accomplish anything more in the topic with how heated the conversation has become. We agree to take a break and come back in x amount of time. My husbands family would call, "Napoleon" when they needed several minutes to compose themselves to better converse. We have borrowed this approach occasionally. 

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