Couples who respond positively to each other's bids for connection and

communicate openly about sex have a better chance at a successful and happy
relationship.

 00:00 🔍 The Gottman Doctors study successful and unsuccessful relationships to develop
interventions for sustaining love, finding that women tend to be more unhappily married,
non-cuddlers have an awful sex life, and key behaviors predict relationship breakup.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married, non-cuddlers have an awful sex life,
and there are key behaviors that predict relationship breakup.
o The Gottman Doctors' mission is to focus on love and understand the differences
between successful and unsuccessful relationships in order to help people build
productive, calm, and compassionate relationships.
o The Gottman Doctors studied successful couples to develop theories and
interventions for sustaining love, conducting research on over 40,000 couples and
publishing hundreds of research papers and over 50 books.
o The quality of people's closest relationships predicts longevity and overall health,
with social isolation and bad relationships leading to shorter lifespans and poorer
health outcomes.
o Couples were studied in a lab setting where their physiological data and
interactions were analyzed to see if there was predictability in relationships.
o Couples can create a deeper friendship with each other, which helps to create
more passion and good sex in a long-lasting relationship, and sustaining a good
relationship does not necessarily take huge effort.

 16:08 🔑 Successful and happy marriages require active listening, responding to bids for
connection, and creating a balance between work and relationship needs, as ignoring bids
for connection can lead to emotional distance and potential infidelity.
o Active listening and responding positively to bids for connection from your
partner are crucial for a successful and happy marriage.
o Women tend to feel unimportant and unloved when their partners are too focused
on work or concentration to notice them.
o Successful couples respond to their partner's bids for connection by stopping
everything and listening, creating a ritual around connection to balance work and
relationship needs.
o Communication and timing are key in a relationship, with partners needing to be
understanding and considerate of each other's availability and needs.
o Ignoring or dismissing bids for connection in a relationship can lead to emotional
distance, loneliness, and potentially infidelity, as it creates a habit of rejecting the
other person's attempts to connect.
o Avoidant and anxious attachment styles can lead to an increase in bids for
connection in a relationship.

 26:51 🔑 Women tend to be more unhappily married, creating rituals of connection is

important, therapy can fail due to lack of tools, successful couples build love maps and
 manage conflict, expressing dreams is important, and 69% of relationship problems are
not solvable.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married and creating rituals of connection,
attunement, and empathy are important for maintaining a strong relationship.
o Blaming and criticism in relationships leads to unhappiness, but describing the
situation and expressing positive needs can lead to motivation and improvement.
o Couples therapy can fail because therapists often lack the proper tools for
assessing and addressing relationship challenges, and traditional therapy focuses
too much on listening to complaints rather than promoting effective
communication and empathy.
o Successful couples build love maps by asking open-ended questions, express
fondness and admiration, manage conflict, honor each other's dreams, create
shared meaning, and build trust and commitment in their relationship.
o Expressing dreams to your partner is important, they don't have to be aligned, and
69% of problems in relationships are not solvable, but can be adapted to and
compromised around.
o The speaker's husband procrastinates on cleaning up the books, leading to
frustration and eventually the speaker taking charge and getting it done.

 44:23 🔑 The Gottman Doctors emphasize the importance of understanding, compromise,

and compassion in relationships, addressing issues such as conflict, negativity, and
physiological responses to arousal and arguments.
o The key to dealing with perpetual problems in a relationship is to use the bagel
method to find compromise, and to avoid getting gridlocked by understanding and
showing compassion for each other's positions.
o The Gottman Doctors have developed six questions that can help couples get out
of gridlock conflict by fostering understanding and compromise, addressing issues
such as feeling unaccepted and conflicting values related to technology in
relationships.
o Understanding the deepest and most important desires and goals of each partner in
a relationship, as well as recognizing the Four Horsemen behaviors during
conflict, is crucial for creating understanding and compassion and avoiding
gridlock.
o The ratio of positivity to negativity in conflict discussions is a key factor in
successful relationships, with criticism and defensiveness being the most
corrosive behaviors.
o Contempt, name-calling, sarcasm, and stonewalling are the four main predictors
of relationship breakup, with contempt being the worst, and stonewalling being
particularly common in men.
o Men tend to stonewall more than women due to their physiological response to
arousal, while women have a more calming response due to oxytocin, and both
genders can experience flooding during arguments.

 58:53 🔑 Women tend to be more unhappily married and bring up relationship issues more
often than men, but managing conflict and communication in a relationship is crucial for
understanding and strengthening the relationship.
 o Men tend to flood more than women during arguments, and taking a break during
an argument can help prevent feeling flooded.
o Women tend to bring up relationship issues more often than men, as they are
raised to nurture and maintain the family unit, but lack empathy for their partner's
role in the relationship.
o Understanding and managing conflict in a relationship is more important than
resolving it, and couples who fight using tools to express their feelings and needs
without blaming each other can better understand each other and strengthen their
relationship.
o Taking notes during important conversations with your partner can help calm
emotions, make them feel valued, and improve understanding and communication
in the relationship.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married, and the Gottman Doctors have a five-
step method for revisiting regrettable incidents in a relationship.
o Communication in relationships involves sharing perceptions, validating feelings,
taking responsibility for actions, apologizing, and discussing ways to avoid
similar incidents in the future.

 01:19:20 🔑 Couples who prioritize daily affirmations, physical touch, and kissing have
better sex and relationship satisfaction, with women needing psychological safety and
emotional connection for receptivity, and the hookup culture leading to loveless and
impersonal sex.
o Couples who express love through daily affirmations, physical touch, and kissing
tend to have a better sex life and overall relationship satisfaction.
o A 6-second kiss and regular sex can create a sense of psychological safety and
connection in a relationship, but sexual preference varies greatly among couples.
o Men who only seek physical contact through sex and women who desire more
affection often face conflict in their relationships, but accepting cuddling as a
form of intimacy can improve their sex life.
o Positive actions in a relationship are foreplay, and couples who stop having sex
often shut down other aspects of their relationship, but emotional connection and
familiarity create more passion and better sex in the long run, especially for
women.
o Women need to feel psychologically safe and emotionally connected in order to
be receptive to sex, and men need to understand and prioritize creating that safety
for their partners.
o The hookup culture is leading to more loveless and impersonal sex, with couples
not committing to long-term relationships as much as before due to factors like
witnessing their parents' divorce.

 01:32:03 🔑 Women tend to be more unhappily married and non-cuddlers have an awful
sex life, as communication, understanding, and navigating differences in desires are
crucial in relationships.
o Women's increasing success and equality in the workforce has led to challenges
for men in defining their roles and providing emotional support.
 o Men and women both need close connections and emotional openness in
relationships, and while women seek sensitivity and emotional awareness in a
partner, they also want someone who can physically protect them, creating a
contradiction in expectations.
o Couples who talk openly and lovingly about their sexual preferences and fantasies
have better sexual relationships, and it is important to navigate differences in
desires by communicating and describing fantasies verbally.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married and non-cuddlers have an awful sex
life, and betrayal lies at the heart of every failed relationship.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married when there is criticism, contempt, and
defensiveness in the relationship, leading to a lack of trust and intimacy.
o Communication and understanding of each other's dreams and needs is important
in a relationship, along with turning towards each other and avoiding blame and
criticism.

 01:52:43 🔑 Use the Gottman card deck to improve communication in your relationship,
accept influence from your partner, and make time for each other to have a successful and
happy marriage, as women tend to be more unhappily married and non-cuddlers have an
awful sex life due to family dynamics and lack of support.
o Use the Gottman card deck to express your needs and improve communication in
your relationship.
o Accepting influence from your partner, communicating regularly, and making
time for each other are key to a successful and happy marriage.
o John and Julie express their deep love and appreciation for each other,
highlighting the joy and support they bring to each other's lives.
o The book "Fight Right" was written to address the increasing polarization and
hatred in the United States, with the hope of promoting better listening and love
within families to create a ripple effect of love in society.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married and non-cuddlers have an awful sex
life due to family dynamics and lack of support.
o Women tend to be more unhappily married and non-cuddlers have an awful sex
life, and the speakers are thanked for their important work on love and
relationships.