The Sound Relationship House Theory

One influential framework we draw from is the Sound Relationship House Theory, developed by Drs. John and Julie Gottman through their extensive research on couples and relationships.

Within the Gottman Method, this framework is used to describe the qualities and practices that help couples strengthen friendship, deepen intimacy and affection, navigate conflict more constructively, increase empathy and understanding, and build a shared life together.

The Sound Relationship House Theory identifies nine key components of healthy, lasting relationships:

1. Build Love Maps: How well do you know your partner’s inner psychological world, his or her history, worries, stresses, joys, and hopes? This principle involves getting to know each other’s worlds – past, present, and future dreams and goals. There is always more to learn about each other if you keep an open mind. Knowing and being known is the foundation of a strong relational friendship.

2. Share Fondness and Admiration: The antidote for contempt, this level focuses on the amount of affection and respect within a relationship. Those who maintain healthy relationships are masters of scanning their environment to observe and express fondness and admiration toward their partner.

3. Turn Towards Instead of Away: State your needs, be aware of bids for connection and respond to (turn towards) them. The small moments of everyday life are actually the building blocks of relationship. Couples who are highly aware of and turn toward one another’s bids for connection, have more loving and lasting relationships, period.

4. The Positive Perspective: The first three levels of the Sound Relationship House serve as the foundation for The Positive Perspective. This may be one of the most important elements of a new relationship’s architecture as it provides the foundation for problem-solving and successful repair attempts.

5. Manage Conflict: When you marry someone, you marry a set of problems. Some are solvable while others are perpetual, which means they will be a part of your lives forever, in some form or another. In fact Gottman found that a majority of marital problems (69%!) are perpetual. With this in mind we say “manage” conflict rather than “resolve” conflict, because relational conflict is not only unsolvable at times, it is natural and has functional, positive aspects, that even include building intimacy.

6. Make Life Dreams Come True: Create an atmosphere that encourages each partner to share and work toward each others hopes, values, convictions and aspirations – even if it means making a few personal sacrifices along the way.

7. Create Shared Meaning: Couples create shared meaning through the use of rituals, roles, goals, and symbols. As you build your relationship together, it is important to create share visions, narratives, myths, and metaphors within your relationship. What does “home” mean? What does “sex” mean? What does “money” mean? What does “play” mean?

8. Trust: Trust and commitment are the foundational pillars of the Sound Relationship House. Trust is something you feel, commitment is something you do. While most believe that trust is created by grand gestures in a relationship, the research highlights that trust is built in small, seemingly insignificant moments. These are the moments that demonstrate your commitment to your partner. They’re the moments that highlight you as a trustworthy lover and as someone capable of deeply caring for and protecting your partner’s heart.

9. Commitment: Is what each partner chooses. It means believing (and acting on the belief) that your relationship with this person is completely your lifelong journey, for better or for worse (meaning that if it gets worse you will both work to improve it). It implies cherishing your partner’s positive qualities and nurturing gratitude by comparing the partner favourably with real or imagined others, rather than trashing the partner by magnifying negative qualities, and nurturing resentment by comparing unfavourably with real or imagined others.