In my last post I talked about the relationship changes that occur when a baby enters a family. This is an important time for a couple to remember why they were attracted to each other in the first place, and begin to reestablish their "couple-ness."

What makes a good marriage? John Gottman, after studying marriages for over thirty years in his research at the University of Washington, put couples into one of two categories. He called them the Masters and the Disasters. The Disasters were the couples who either got divorced or managed to stay together (often for the sake of the children), but were miserable. The Masters were the couples who stayed together and were relatively happy. And to become a Master required just two things. The Masters of relationships worked on the friendship in their marriage and learned how to regulate the conflict.

One of the concepts that Gottman teaches is that becoming a Master involves a lot of "small things often." Many people think that it’s the big things that impact a marriage - the vacations, the gifts, the large gestures - but these things cannot take the place of the small, daily things that have an impact on our relationships. In light of the need to work on friendship in a marriage, there are several “small things” that you can do to improve your friendship.

The first step in growing your friendship and learning about your partner is beginning to understand the inner psychological world of the other person. To do so, Gottman takes couples through two different types of questions. The first are questions that help you understand the likes and dislikes, thoughts and feelings of your partner. You read a question and then answer it in the way you think your partner would answer. Then you find out if you are correct.

Here are a couple of examples of this type of question: "What is my favorite holiday?" "What kinds of books do I most like to read?” “What do I fear the most?” (You can find many more questions of this type in Gottman's Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.) This helps couples see where they might have some preconceived ideas about what the other person is thinking or feeling, but actually may be very incorrect.

The second type of question gets to a deeper level of understanding. Open-ended questions are questions that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" answer. Examples of this type of question are "How can I be a better friend to you?" "How have you changed in the last year?" "What are some of your life dreams now?" More examples of these questions can be found in And Baby Makes Three, by John and Julie Gottman.

The whole purpose of these questions is to get beyond the daily grind interactions that most couples have. Spending all of your time talking about issues of childcare, family logistics, chores, schedules, drains your emotional bank account. Spending time together, learning about each other's inner world helps you to create what Gottman calls a "Love Map," and helps to strengthen the friendship - step one in becoming a Master of Relationships.

The other important point in building and maintaining friendship for couples is to learn to express appreciation, affection, and admiration. This is where the "small things often" concept comes into play. It doesn't take much effort to offer a word of praise or a thank you or a touch. So often we ignore the things that are appreciated and criticism becomes the norm in our families. When a couple learns to make this positive perspective a habit, their relationship - and their friendship - grows! But remember, it isn't enough to think the positive thoughts. They need to be expressed, often! This is what the Masters do differently from the Disasters.

In my next post, we'll discuss the second part of Gottman's prescription for stable and successful relationships: Regulating conflict.