The secret to a long, happy relationship comes down to two things.

This is kindness and generosity.

Every day of June (the most popular wedding month of the year) around a huge number of couples say "yes", entering into an alliance that will last until the end of their days and will be filled with friendship, joy and love.

Alas, this principle does not work for everyone.

Most marriages fail, ending in divorce, leading to resentment, bitterness, and recrimination.

As psychologist Tai Tashiro writes in his book, The science of happiness since...”, which was published earlier this year, only 3/10 of all married people remain in a happy marriage.

Sociologists began studying marriage in the 1970s in response to a crisis in the institution of the family: married couples began to break up at a record pace. Concerned about the impact that divorces have on children, psychologists decided to study couples in order to find out in the laboratory What is the secret to a healthy long-term relationship?

Was every unhappy family unhappy in its own way, as Tolstoy claimed, or do all broken marriages have things in common?

Psychologist John Gottman was one of the researchers. Over the past four decades, he has studied thousands of couples in order to understand what it is that keeps relationships strong. I recently had the opportunity to interview Gottman and his wife, Julia, who is also a psychologist, in New York. Together, family stability experts created the Gottman Institute, which helps couples build and maintain strong relationships based on scientific research.

John Gottman began tackling this issue in 1986 when he created the Love Lab with his colleague Robert Levenson at the University of Washington. Gottman and Levenson brought the newlyweds into their lab and watched them interact with each other.

Together with a team of researchers, they connected couples to electrodes and asked them to talk about their relationship - how they met, what was their first fight, what is the most positive memory they have with each other. As they spoke, the electrodes measured the subjects' blood flow, heart rate, and the amount of sweat they produced. The researchers then let the couples go home and invited them back to the lab six years later to see if their marriage had survived and how their relationship had changed.

Based on the collected data, Gottman divided the couples into two main groups: "masters" And "natural disasters".

• "Masters" were still happy after six years of marriage.
• "Natural disasters" were either divorced or chronically unhappy in marriage.

When the scientists analyzed the data they received from the couples, they saw clear differences between "masters" and "natural disasters." During the interview, the latter looked very calm, while their physiology spoke otherwise. Their hearts were beating very fast, their sweat glands were overactive, and their blood flow was intense. After analyzing thousands of couples in this way, the researchers concluded that the more physiologically active the couples were in the lab, the faster their relationship deteriorated.

But what about physiology? The problem is that "natural disasters" showed all the signs of excitement in their relationship. They seemed to be in fighting mode, ready to attack at any moment. For them, having a conversation and sitting next to their spouse was tantamount to coming face to face with a saber-toothed tiger.

The Masters, on the other hand, showed a low level of arousal. They felt calm and comfortable in each other's company, which turned into affectionate behavior, even when they quarreled. This does not mean that the "masters" have created a better physiological disguise than "natural disasters". This means that the “masters” created an atmosphere of trust and intimacy that allowed them both to feel emotionally and physically comfortable.

Gottman wanted to learn more about how the "masters" were able to provide a culture of love and intimacy, and "natural disasters" to destroy it. In a follow-up study in 1990, he set up a laboratory on the campus of the University of Washington. The conditions in the laboratory were more like the atmosphere of a sanatorium, where one could have a great rest.

He invited 130 newlywed couples there to spend the whole day in this pleasant place, doing what couples usually do on vacation. Gottman made a crucial discovery in his research to understand why some relationships thrive while others fail.

Throughout the day, the partners made communication requests, which Gottman called "invitations." For example, a man drew his wife's attention to the fact that a goldfinch was flying around the yard. He said to his wife: "Look at the beautiful bird outside!". He not only commented on the fact of the appearance of the bird, but also requested a response from his wife - which is a sign of interest and support - and the hope that they will “connect” to each other.

The wife has a choice. She could answer by either turning to her husband or turning away from him. The bird, according to Gottman, has become just a detail here, allowing you to take a closer look at the relationship in a couple. The husband thought that the bird was an important reason to start a dialogue. The question is whether the wife recognized this position and respected it.

The partnership-oriented people in the study responded to the "invitation" with keen interest and support. There were those who did not react or reacted minimally, preferring to mind their own business. Some even reacted with open hostility: "Don't interrupt me, I'm reading!"

Such interactions with "invitations" had a great impact on family well-being. Couples who divorced after six years of marriage spent only 33 percent of the time building emotional intimacy with their partner. At the same time, happy couples spent 87 percent of their time doing it. Only 3 out of 10 "invitations" of "natural disasters" were met with enthusiasm, for "masters" this ratio was 9 out of 10.

By observing these types of interactions, Gottman could predict with 94 percent certainty what would happen to a couple—straight or gay, rich or poor, childless or burdened with offspring. Will they still be happy together a few years later, or will they break up (or remain in an unhappy union). Much of it comes down to what kind of spirit couples bring to the relationship. Whether they bring kindness and generosity or contempt, criticism and hostility.

In an interview, Gottman explained that "masters" have a habit of thinking in a certain way: they monitor the external environment for things they can appreciate and be grateful for. They build this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. "Natural disasters" scan the social environment for the mistakes of partners.

“It's not just a scan of the environment,” Julia Gottman intervenes, it's a scan of a partner for what he is doing right or, on the contrary, wrong. It's a choice to criticize him or appreciate him for who he is."

As scientists have found, the main reason for the breakdown of couples was contempt. People who are judgmental about their partners miss 50 percent of the positive things they do, and they tend to see the negative where there isn't any.

People who give a partner a cold welcome, deliberately ignoring him or responding minimally to his requests, make him feel unwanted and invisible. People who constantly treat their partners with contempt and criticize them not only destroy feelings and relationships, but also reduce the spouse’s body’s ability to fight viruses and cancer. You can call this behavior the death knell for a relationship.

Kindness, on the other hand, binds couples together. Independent research has shown that kindness (along with emotional stability) is the most important factor influencing marital satisfaction and stability. Kindness makes a partner feel loved, important, understood, and valued. “My generosity is as boundless as the sea,” Shakespeare’s Juliet said, “the more I give it to you, the more it becomes.” The principle of kindness works the same way: there is a lot of evidence that the more good a person receives, the kinder he himself becomes. In relationships, this, of course, leads to their strengthening.

There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think of it as a fixed feature - either you have it or you don't. Or you can think of kindness as a muscle. This muscle is stronger in some people than in others, but it can become stronger in anyone with regular exercise. "Masters" tend to think of kindness as a muscle. They know they have to exercise it in order to keep in shape. In other words, they know that good relationships are hard work all the time.

“If your partner expresses a need,” explains Julia Gottman, “and you are tired, stressed or distracted, the generosity will be to, no matter what, turn to face your partner and respond to his “invitation”

At this point, it's easy to turn away from your partner and focus on your ipad or book or TV, mumble "Uh-huh" and get back to your business, but neglecting even such small moments of social connection will undermine your relationship. Neglect creates distance between partners and generates resentment in the one who has been ignored.

The hardest time to show kindness is a fight. But this is also the most important time to be kind. If you allow aggression and contempt to get out of control, it can cause irreparable damage to the relationship.

“Kindness doesn’t mean we don’t express anger, Julia Gottman explains but kindness determines which way we choose to express our anger. You can throw spears at your partner, or you can explain to him why you are hurt and angry, and this is a kinder way.

John Gottman elaborates on spears: "Natural disasters" behave differently during a quarrel. They'll say, "You're late. Yes, what's wrong with you? You are exactly like your mother." "Masters" they will say: “I feel bad because you are late and, although I know that this is not your fault, it still annoys me that you are late again”

For the hundreds of thousands of couples who marry each June, and for the millions of couples who are now together, married or out of it, the lesson of the research is simple: If you want to have a stable healthy relationship, start practicing kindness as early as possible and do it more often.

When people talk about the practice of kindness, they often mean small acts of generosity (like buying each other small gifts or relaxing back massages, etc.). At the same time, serious examples of generosity and kindness can lay the foundation of a relationship that partners will carry through their daily routine, regardless of whether they include back massage and chocolate.

One way to practice kindness is to be generous to your partner's intentions. We know from the Gottmans' research that "natural disasters" tend to see the negative in a relationship, even when it's not there. An embittered wife, for example, may believe that her husband left the toilet seat up on purpose to annoy her. But he could do it simply out of absent-mindedness.

Or, say, the wife is again late for dinner, and her husband thinks that in this way she does not appreciate him enough to come to their romantic anniversary date on time, although he took off work early for this. But it turns out that the wife was late because she stopped at the store to pick up a gift for her husband.

Imagine her joining him for dinner, excited that she is going to please him with a gift, and her husband in a terrible mood for misinterpreting her behavior. The ability to interpret your partner's actions and intentions can soften the edge of a conflict.

“Even in relationships where people are disappointed, it is almost always caused by the fact that positive developments are taking place, and people are at least trying to do some things right,” says psychologist Tai Tashiro. “Many times a partner tries to do everything right, even if he has doesn't come out very well. So appreciate his intention."

Another powerful strategy for kindness is to share joy.. One of the clear signs of "natural disaster" in a couple Gottman refers to the inability to share the partner's joy. For example, one in a couple shares his joy at being promoted at work, and the second does not show any interest in this, being distracted by his watch or ending the conversation with a comment: "It's good".

We've all heard that partners need to be there when the going gets tough. However, researchers that it is much more important to be there just when things are going Okay. How a person reacts to a partner's good news can have dramatic consequences for a relationship.

In one 2006 study, psychologist Shelly Gable and her colleagues took young couples into a lab to discuss the positive things happening in their lives. Psychologists wanted to know how partners respond to each other's success. The researchers identified four types of reactions: passively destructive, actively destructive, passively constructive, and actively constructive.

Suppose a girl finds out that she has been accepted into medical school. And she said something like “I got what I wanted! I got accepted into medical school!”

1. If her partner answers in a passively destructive manner- it will ignore this event. For example, he might say, "You won't believe what happened to me yesterday: I won a free jersey!"
2. If her partner answers in a passively constructive manner, he acknowledges the good news, but sluggishly, downplaying it. A typical passively constructive response is, "That's great, baby," in the same style as he texts a friend.
3. In the case of an actively destructive response Your partner will greatly downplay the good news, such as, “Are you sure you can handle the stress? How much does it cost? Medical school is very expensive."
4. And finally actively constructive response- this is when the partner stops doing his own thing and exclaims: “This is wonderful! Congratulations! When did you know? Did they call you? Lessons will start in the first semester?

Among the four possible types of responses, actively constructive is the kindest. While the rest can only kill the joy, the actively constructive type allows the partner to enjoy the joy and unites the couple even more. In the language of the Gottmans, an actively constructive type means "turning towards a partner."

An actively constructive type is essential for a healthy relationship. In a 2006 study, Gable and her colleagues followed up the couples six months later to see if their relationship continued. Psychologists concluded that the only difference between couples who were still happy with each other and those who broke up was an actively constructive type of interaction. Those who showed a genuine interest in their partner's success had a high chance of staying together. In an earlier study, Gable also found that actively constructive interactions were associated with higher relationship quality and greater intimacy between partners.

There are many reasons why marriages fail. However, if you look at what leads to the collapse of many relationships, it is, more often than not, a lack of kindness. When a lot of problems fall on a couple - routine, home, children, career, relatives - people who loved each other quite recently can now begin to move away, putting less and less effort into relationships and allowing small grievances to gradually crowd out a big feeling.

In most marriages, satisfaction levels drop dramatically during the first few years together. But not among couples who live happily together for long years, they are guided by a spirit of kindness and generosity.