Why it is unavoidable
Two people cannot share a life without wanting different things sometimes. That is not a sign of mismatch. It is a consequence of being two people.
No two people are identical in thought and belief patterns, regardless of how similar they might be.
Gillian Florence Sanger, The Gottman Institute
Disagreements are an inevitable component of all relationships.
Gillian Florence Sanger, The Gottman Institute
Which means a relationship with no visible conflict is not necessarily doing better. Sometimes it is a relationship where one person has stopped raising things.
What actually predicts the outcome
Fortunately, our research shows that it’s not the appearance of conflict, but rather how it’s managed that predicts the success or failure of a relationship.
The Gottman Institute
Successful relationships aren’t conflict-free; they’re simply better at managing arguments and repairing when something has gone wrong.
The Gottman Institute
So the useful goal is not fewer arguments. It is better ones, and a reliable way back to each other afterwards.
Manage, rather than resolve
A lot of relationship advice assumes every disagreement has a solution waiting to be found. Most of the recurring ones do not.
We say “manage” conflict rather than “resolve,” because relationship conflict is natural and has functional, positive aspects that provide opportunities for growth and understanding.
The Gottman Institute
Accepting that a particular difference is permanent is not giving up. It is what makes it possible to stop treating every occurrence as a failure.
When you have irresolvable problems in your marriage (everyone does!), you can either hold that against your partner or accept what you cannot change.
Maureen Werrbach, The Gottman Institute
The patterns that do real damage
Conflict itself is neutral. Four specific habits inside it are not, and they are worth knowing by name because they are easier to catch than to describe afterwards.
A complaint focuses on a specific behavior, but criticism attacks a person’s very character.
The Gottman Institute
Defensiveness will only escalate the conflict if the critical spouse does not back down or apologize. This is because defensiveness is really a way of blaming your partner, and it won’t allow for healthy conflict management.
Dr. Ellie Wilde, The Gottman Institute
Stonewalling occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction, shuts down, and simply stops responding to their partner.
Dr. Ellie Wilde, The Gottman Institute
Contempt... is the number one predictor of divorce, but it can be defeated.
Dr. Ellie Wilde, The Gottman Institute
Worth saying plainly
Noticing one of these in yourself is not a diagnosis of your relationship. All four show up in couples who are doing well. What separates them is that somebody notices and does something about it rather than letting it become the default.
Your own pattern is specific
General advice about conflict is of limited use, because the thing that goes wrong is particular to the two of you. One of you may move toward resolution quickly while the other needs room first. One of you may need it said out loud before it feels finished while the other takes ordinary conversation as the sign.
Your Attune results describe your own version of that rather than the average one. That is the part worth reading slowly.
“All couples fight, but not every couple knows how to do it in a healthy way.”
Jennifer Scott, The Gottman Institute