The post today on The Attachment Theory of Relationships reminded me of a good piece of advice I’d read in John Gottman’s The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, described in short in this article on The Gottman Institute website:
“The difference between happy and unhappy couples is the balance between positive and negative interactions during conflict. There is a very specific ratio that makes love last.
That “magic ratio” is 5 to 1. This means that for every negative interaction during conflict, a stable and happy marriage has five (or more) positive interactions.”
Kyle Benson, “The Magic Relationship Ratio, According to Science.” The Gottman Institute. October 4, 2017.
Intuitively, this seems like it probably applies to every relationship we have. If you are not getting five times more positivity than negativity from someone in your life, maybe it’s time to reconsider the relationship?
cafebedouin.org 