How many times have you asked yourself what will the future bring in your relationship? Moreover, how many times have you asked yourself if your relationship has a future?
Usually you just give up trying to find the answer because you’re not sighted or have a crystal ball, but can you imagine being able to guess the future? We have the secret formula to know if your relationship will last. Do you dare to discover the truth?
The theory comes from the hand of one of the greatest experts in the couple, John Gottman, and serves to ‘guess’ the future of the relationship.
Will you last with your partner or will you break up in a short time? Gottman’s research consisted of asking several couples to discuss a conflict in the relationship to try to solve it.
The way these couples argued Gottman got the necessary clues to know if they would continue together or not in the future.
The theory of the proportion of love 5: 1 as a couple
Here his theory of the 5: 1 ratio comes into play. What is it about? For each negative interaction in a couple discussion, couples with a promising future, interspersed 5 positive interactions. 5 to 1, that is, to 1 hard reproach followed by 5 positive comments about the couple.
The theory makes sense because it is nothing less than learning to discuss as a couple and consider communication as a couple sacrosanct.
Speaking is understood by people, even in the middle of a discussion. And speaking is not to offend, criticize or reproach, but to point out both the negative and the positive of the situation.
The importance of the couple’s discussions
The way in which a couple discusses takes on special relevance when it comes to knowing whether a future in common or not possible.
The discussions are about problems and aim to solve the problem, not to revile the other person. How are your couple’s arguments?
If there are insults, if subjects are already treated and they have nothing to do with the current discussion, if reproaches are made about the other person’s way of being or if the other’s weak points are used as a throwing weapon, perhaps better to rethink your relationship as a couple.
Instead, you can have an angry discussion with your partner and at the same time, you tell him or her, for example, what has bothered you about his or her behavior, you remind him or her that of your love and that the intention is to seek an understanding. It is also worth pointing out, between snorts and snorts, those things that make you strong as a couple.
The theory of compensation for couples
And why 5 to 1? According to Gottman, the negative weighs more than the positive in a discussion. If you make a reproach, the conversation becomes immediately negative and destructive, so to compensate you need to send 5 positive messages. It has its logic and also compensatory theories are always present in a relationship.
Does it make up for or not compensate you? Going to eat at the house of the in-laws compensated with a series marathon; spend the holidays on the mountain compensated with a trip to the beach; the distribution of domestic tasks; your friends and my friends; your tastes and mine
A relationship is based on giving one and gold so that any assignment or concession is compensated, which is the same, balanced.
