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  • The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

  • A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert, Revised and Updated
  • Written by: John M. Gottman PhD, Nan Silver
  • Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
  • Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (147 ratings)

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The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Written by: John M. Gottman PhD, Nan Silver
Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
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Publisher's Summary

Just as Masters and Johnson were pioneers in the study of human sexuality, so Dr. John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage. As a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and the founder and director of the Seattle Marital and Family Institute, he has studied the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over the course of many years. His findings, and his heavily attended workshops, have already turned around thousands of faltering marriages.

This book is the culmination of his life's work: the seven principles that guide couples on the path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Straightforward in their approach, yet profound in their effect, these principles teach partners new and startling strategies for making their marriage work. Gottman helps couples focus on each other, on paying attention to the small day-to-day moments that, strung together, make up the heart and soul of any relationship. Being thoughtful about ordinary matters provides spouses with a solid foundation for resolving conflict when it does occur and finding strategies for living with those issues that cannot be resolved.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the definitive guide for anyone who wants their relationship to attain its highest potential.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©1999, 2015 John Mordechai Gottman, PhD, and Nan Silver (P)2020 Tantor

What listeners say about The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great book for anyone

This book reveals key concepts that make or break marriages. I especially liked the concept of "Four horsemen of the apocalypse" that sabotages the conversation and the relationship with the partner. I think many insights I learned from this book can be applied to other types of relationships, not just marriages. So this book is great for anyone who wants to develop a lasting and meaningful relationship - which is everyone. I appreciated the example dialogues as well as the narrator's attempts to differentiate the male and the female speakers.
This book's biggest weakness was the "workbook" portion. At the end of each chapter, the narrator read every single item on the checklist and the options. I thought this worked for some lists, such as the list of phrases that show appreciation to the partner, and the list of phrases that clearly signal repair attempts. But I found that they dragged the overall pace of the book. Towards the end I had a hard time concentrating on the words even though they were some of the best parts of the book. "The Men's Guide to Women" was written by the same author and read by the same narrator. I enjoyed that book because the jokes were better and it had "cheat sheets for heroes" at the end of each chapter that was easy to understand and remember. I was able to focus on the content until the very end. I wonder if a similar formatting could have been applied here, and leave those workbooks as PDF attachments.
At any rate, the key concepts are clearly explained and I learned a lot from this book. I highly recommend it.

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13 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Great!

Great content. It would be nice to have the physical book now because their are so many questions to work through.

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Good work but not good as audio

There’s tons of check lists and self tests to go through, so having the narrator reading out endless lists of questions and possible answers is ridiculous unless you absolutely must have audio. Returning this on audible and getting a kindle version instead.

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic book - get the physical one

This book has great information and is really informative. The content is worth getting this book especially to help you marriage. But I recommend getting the paperback.

As an audible book this is difficult to listen to due to the couple dozen quizzes they read out loud. Each quiz typically has 10 questions or more and I wouldn’t be surprised if an hour or more of the book is just reading these quizzes to you. It is fairly annoying.

However, content itself is fantastic and I took quite a bit from this book to apply to my marriage and relationships. Worth reading.

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3 people found this helpful

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Marriage and relationships

This is the golden book on making your marriage and relationships work and thrive. Highly recommend!!

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

So many great excercises to work on your marriage!

Definitely a book to buy and keep on hand as a resource to refer back to! It offered awareness of potential warning signs, how to avoid them and many excercises to keep our marriages on the right track.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Informative

This was very good and I wish I would have know some of these things prior to my first marriage collapse. However the thoughts and tool are useful for building a stronger foundation for my new marriage. My only criticism is that there is no free PDFs with the book and the narrative is long and confusing to follow as he narrated the activity. It would have been better to be able to print PDF and follow along.

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1 person found this helpful

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Overall very helpful

There are a lot of hetero-normative examples. I could do without all the gender stereotypes, but the principles are what’s important. If you can get past the conservatism, it’s very helpful

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  • sm
  • 2022-03-02

Must read

Great book on how to build the marriage you’ve always wanted. Breaks down the importance and why of of each step and then thoroughly explains how to do - both individual and couple exercises.

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1 person found this helpful

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Still the Best Guide

It has been over ten years since my wife and I first benefited from this book. Re-reading it in audio format has been a good refresher. Couples and individuals can always benefit from a little self-examination and recommitment to the work of being married. Thank you to John and Nat for the revision and also to Eric for a fine job of narrating.

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