Rating: 
Summary: Ought to be Required Reading for Every Married Couple
Review: After the cliche-ridden obviousness of "Women are From Venus," the research-based work of John Gottman is welcome relief. I credit this book with repairing the marital difficulties my husband and I faced up until a couple of years ago. Since studying Gottman's research I've been motivated to change my own behavior, and I've been gratified to find that my husband's behavior changed in response. Can there be a higher recommendation? Nope, my husband didn't belong in his Men-are-from-Mars cave. He belonged in our marriage. Now he's there, because I quit chasing him into the cave!
Rating:
Summary: Way better than I expected.
Review: Actually, I'm not sure *what* I expected. I guess I figured I'd hear more of the same ~ that a failing marriage is all about communication. I feared the advice in this book would be vague at best, but I gave it a shot (thanks Amazon reviewers), and now I'm grateful to have found it. His first two chapters explain his findings after studying real life couples and how they interact. I found reading about other couples' arguments eye opening, as I sometimes saw myself in them. Being the objective observer in these cases allowed me to consider my own approach to arguments with my husband and instantly see how I unintentionally made things worse. The chapter "How I Predict Divorce" is especially helpfull. Our approach to an argument makes all the difference in the world, and it's so much more than "I understand what you're saying, but..." Gottman points out specific mistakes we all make that, over time, will chip away at the foundation of the relationship. Gottman reminds us, though, that learning how to fight isn't going to single handedly save the marriage. The rest of the book is dedicated to how couples behave when they aren't fighting. Are you really, truly friends? Do you honestly know what's important to one another? Do you influence each other in a positive way? Questions like these force us to examine our relationship in depth. He includes exercises in each chapter (I haven't done these personally...right now, I'm the only one who's reading up on marriage and conflict) to hammer home the point. Honestly, I liked this book so much, I'd be interested in doing some of the exercises, but I'm not so sure my husband would. Let me put it this way...we aren't in the same place yet. I highly recommend this book. I love the fact that Gottman can take his findings and share them with the reader in plain English. His approach is just right: informative and to the point.
Rating:
Summary: Very scientific... an engineer can use this.
Review: This book was a great self help book because it was based on real research. It is easy to read, but can be rigorous if you apply all the excerses recommended. I think that these principles helped to open my eyes to things I was doing right and wrong and helped me to address some poor behavior. Some of the things described were also a wake up call in my own relationship because it describes so well what I am really going through, giving the book much credibility.
Rating:
Summary: Filled with tools my wife & I use to strengthen our marriage
Review: As a relationship and romance author, speaker, and coach I read a lot of books about dating, marriage, and romance. "Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" is one of my top 10 favorites. The seven principles identified through Gottman's research are powerful and when coupled with the exercises that are included you get practical tools to strengthen your marriage. The first two chapters give you an insight into where the book is coming from. The information gleened from the Seattle Love Lab gives you hope for a successful marriage and identifies key warning signs for trouble in your relationship. The next seven chapters cover the principles in depth with skill building exercises to enhance your proficiency in each area. First is building a foundation with "Love Maps." Next is developing a compassion and caring with "Fondness and Admiration." Chapter 5 focuses on creating an intimate relationship by looking to your partner for help, support, and answers. Giving a higher value and priority to your partner follows allowing you to be influenced by them. The next three chapters cover problems in the marriage and how to handle them. Work, money, in-laws, [physical attraction], housework, and a new baby are the big six areas of conflict. Some problems are solvable and some not. How you handle the conflict is key. Next the book covers"Overcoming Gridlock" or creating a dialogue and point of acceptance for unsolvable problems. The final chapter is really about creating a shared vision for the marriage and the future of it. The benefits of marriage are well documented; longer life, more money, healthier children, and better [physical activity]. "Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" gives you a practical guide for achieving those benefits, and more!
Rating:
Summary: Lots of excellent advice
Review: This book has lots of excellent and interesting advice about how to keep a relationship together. It is written in a way that everyone can understand and is full of practical suggestions. If you are in a relationship and want to figure out some ways to keep two souls dancing together to the wide variety of tunes life throws at us, read this book. Chances are, you will learn numerous things that are very helpful. If you want to go one step further and develop a deeper understanding of your relationship and what it means, you should read, "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is simply the best book I have ever read on this topic! Meanwhile, enjoy the dance.
Rating:
Summary: The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work
Review: When thinking about a book to select for my assignment for my interpersonal communication class, I knew I wanted to read a book that both interests me and will help me in the long run. The Seven Principles written by John Gottman, Ph.D. mapped out tings that could make a marrige fail or on the verge of failing, these principles are things that no one would think of as problems to their marriage. But in reality most of the principles are the main problems to a marriage. I think this book is accurate to everything a couple needs to know aboutmarriage and helping it work and get through anything. Anyone can understand the way that Gottman wrote this book because he wants to be able to get through anyone and doesn't want the couple to become more confused while trying to get through the book to help themselves. John Gottman is a very intelligent man who seems to understands the concept of marriage and how it works, the way that he incorporates it into a book is both well written because he takes each principle and breaks it down into steps and gives exercises to do and questionnaires to take to help better understand what the chapter is about and what he wants you to get from it. This book really took me by surprise; I thought it was going to be another book from some therapist who really doesn't know what they are talking about and gives information and advice that you could have gotten from a friend. Gottman gave information that really knows one would think of because to many people the things that he discussed are not important but in reality they are the most important. Overall, this book was made to help couples get through everything that they face in a marriage without going to someone else that knows what they are talking about maybe but doens't know the couple and allows them to work it out on thier own and to connect back with each other.
Rating: 
Summary: Debunks a million myths, offers sound advice
Review: I practiced psychotherapy in New York City for fourteen years. Though I had training as a marriage counselor in addition to my main training as a psychotherapist, I turned away more couples than I accepted. Most years, I didn't take on more than one or two couples, if that. There were many reasons for this, but fundamentally it was that marriage counseling rarely works. (About thirty-five to forty percent of the time, and half of those relapse, according to the best research.) I had made a vow when I went into training that I would never take on patients that I did not honestly believe I could help. (I can't say that I kept that vow sterling, being human--but I tried.) Most couples, I believed, could not be helped, so I didn't want to take their money or waste their time. In hard, cold truth, most of what most marriage counselors teach is just made up. Concocted. Without any sound research base. That's just a fact. When I was in training, I was utterly shocked at this. I was appalled at the simple-minded dogmatism of marriage-counseling orthodoxy. Most mental health care has a flimsier basis in research than its proponents admit (or even know, often), but in marriage counseling, the paucity of good research was almost total. (This evaluation of the low scientific basis of mental health care is not some private crackpot theory of mine; I wrote it up in my book "Cultures of Healing," which was published by the book-publishing arm of Scientific American in 1995 and will be republished, under a different title--"Health and Suffering in America: The Context and Content of Mental Health Care"--next year by Transaction Publishers/Rutgers. My point here is not to plug my book so much as to tell you that I know whereof I speak, and to encourage you to take my recommendation here seriously.) If I had known John Gottman's work back then, I would have had an entirely different approach to treating couples, and I would have taken more of them on. (No one in my three years of training ever mentioned Gottman, and I went to a pretty respectable institute. Gottman is just so at odds with conventional wisdom in the field that he wasn't even taken seriously.) Gottman's opinions--though he denies that they are opinions--are based on admirable, extensive, carefully analyzed research. While there is much to criticize methodologically about this research, and it certainly is nowhere near as conclusive as he says, at least he has done real work--not sat around making stuff up and pawning it off on students and patients. His is the best research of which I (now, many years later) know. Even if it isn't knock-down-drag-out conclusive, it is much better to have opinions based on extensive research and attempts to understand it rigorously than on no research, wild speculation, wishful thinking, and wooly feelings. Gotttman's opinions are very good, for the most part. This book does a nice job of conveying the gist of his work, in clear, practical form. In my experience, most marriage counselors do more harm than good and teach more made-up nonsense that practical wisdom. So unless you can find someone who trained with Gottman, I'd say DON'T go to a marriage counselor--buy this book. If you ARE seeing a marriage counselor, read this book and discuss with your counselor where his or her views differ. Ask for the basis for what your counselor does differently. Maybe it will make sense. But if your counselor is not open to the possibility of modifying his or her approach based on what you find valuable here, at least for your therapy, fire him. Or her. Whatever. Just run.
Why only four stars? Two reasons: (1) Gottman does not allow that for some significant minority, the difficluties in marriage are much more complex and intractable. E.g., while he is right that ordinary neuroses themselves do not kill marriage--so long as you marry someone whose neuroses match up with yours, or who can tolerate yours--it is certainly the case that some mental illnesses, such as paranoia and borderline personality, make marriage extremely hard. (2) A little humility on Gottman's part would make this book much easier to read and leave more room for the intelligent, wise reader to disagree, modify, and make it his or her own. Gottman is much too taken with himself, and while his research is more extensive and careful than most anything else done in the field, marriage counseling ain't physics (or biology or even sociology), and it certainly should not be granted the authority Gottman claims for it. This isn't the final word on marriage, but it is about the best of the overly-many words that have heretofore been uttered.
Rating:
Summary: Practical and Realistic
Review: Using his own scientific research, John Gottman's book provides us with very practical advice about marriage. It is also very realistic rather than idealistic. This is a great book on how to maintain a marriage but did not have much on how to enhance a marital relationship beyond just keeping it together (although I realize that this is an important first step). If you really want to know how to develop a true loving relationship beyond just keeping it together, I'd highly recommend "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. It is an awesome book that enlightens you about what a true loving relationship really is.
Rating: 
Summary: cognitive approach that doesn't go deep enough
Review: Under the guise of scientific research, this book recommends that couples develop certain attitudes - cognitive styles - that will improve interactions. This is more important, the author asserts, than trying to resolve the issues that are discussed, debated, and argued about. In other words, he argues that it is far more important to be nice, to avoid being defensive or sarcastic, to avoid stonewalling and the like. While this may well be an important insight and may predict the prospects of couples facing divorce, I believe that the issues matter in marriages and thus that this advice only gets a couple in trouble part way there. THere are also exercises, in which couples can check their cognitive styles and try to adjust them. REcommended with these limits in mind.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book.
Review: This book is wonderful. I liked it so much that I ordered the Couple's workshop video from the Gottman website. I highly recommend this book for all couples.
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