Happy Couples Healthy Communities

03/14/2026

03/12/2026

Dr. John Gottman’s research found that if a man does not accept influence from his partner, there is an 81 percent chance that his marriage will self-destruct. On the other hand, he found that men who do accept influence from their partner tend to have happier marriages. In his long-term study of 130 newlywed couples, whom he followed for nine years, he found that, even in the first few months of marriage, men who allowed their wives to influence them had happier relationships and were less likely to eventually divorce than men who resisted their wives’ influence.
Perhaps the fundamental difference between husbands who accept influence and those who don’t is that the former have learned that often in life you need to yield in order to win. When you drive through any busy city, you find frustrating traffic jams or construction that block your rightful passage. You can approach this in one of two ways. The first is to stop, become righteously indignant, and insist that the offending obstacle move. The other is to drive around it. The first approach will eventually earn you a heart attack. The second approach will get you home.
So, how can you yield to win? The basic principle of the martial art Aikido is to move with the opponent, but to stay balanced. What you have to do to win is to get your partner to start saying yes, and the only way to do that is to yield to those parts of your partner’s point of view and argument that seem reasonable to you. What happens then—when both of you start yielding—is that the problem starts to become something that both of you are working on together.

03/11/2026

Dr. John Gottman found that 69% of what couples fight about are not solvable problems, they are perpetual problems. And 16% of them because gridlocked perpetual problems. Those are the things that you fight about over and over again and every time you do it is frustrating and it hurts and you feel like you get nowhere. The reason that it becomes gridlocked is because, for each of you, there is some deeply held value, belief, story, or dream behind your position, and it feels like to give that up is to give up your own bones. The goal in these cases is not to solve the problem, because it is probably perpetual, but to move from gridlock to dialogue and to discover the value, belief, story, or dream behind each of your positions. Only then can you break the gridlock, have more empathy for each other, and maybe come to a compromise on the issue.

03/08/2026

Small issues often grow when ignored. Couples therapy can strengthen your connection before conflict deepens.

Invest in love while it's strong, not only when it's hurting. Call 904-792-9666.

03/07/2026

Families thrive when everyone feels heard. Family therapy gives each person space to express and understand.

Build trust and respect at home again. Call 904-792-9666.

03/07/2026

March is a chance to reset your emotional well-being.

helps you release what's been weighing you down. You deserve clarity and peace moving forward. Begin today. Call 904-792-9666.

03/03/2026

In his over 40 years of investigations with over 3,000 couples, Dr. John Gottman found that criticism is one the four leading predictors or causes of separation of divorce. He called it one of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" when it comes to relationships.
Criticism is describing a problem as a flaw in your partner’s character, for example, “You are so lazy.” Criticism often begins with “You always” or “You never” and involves pointing the finger at your partner and implying not just that they made a mistake, but that there is something fundamentally wrong with their personality.
Women exceed men in delivering criticism. This is not intended to blame women; criticism often results from complaints or irritability a woman may feel that has been long ignored by her partner. With a lack of response by her partner, her complaints may then escalate to criticism. Nevertheless, criticism is still destructive.
The antidote to criticism is to use gentle start-up. Gentle start-up involves using “I” statements about your feelings: i.e., “I feel… (sad, angry, frustrated, etc.) about… (describe the situation, not your partner). I need… (state a positive need).” For example, if you are upset because your partner was home late from work and didn’t call and dinner was ready and waiting, rather than saying, “You’re always late and thoughtless and you ruined dinner,” you could say, “I feel upset because dinner was ready and you didn’t call to say that you would be late. I need you to be home on time or to call or text me if you are going to be late.”

03/01/2026

Screenshots from my Virtual Level 3 Clinical Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy this weekend for National Marriage Seminars with 57 participants from the U.S., Canada, England, and Angola. Thanks to National Marriage Seminars for organizing and hosting the training and to fellow Certified Gottman Therapists and Clinical Trainers Don Allen, Jack Crossan, and Chris Cambas for joining me!

02/26/2026

Are you interested in this event, but want to know more? I will be offering two more interest calls via Zoom where you can learn more information about the training and about the tourism in and around beautiful and historic Cusco.

One is today, Thursday, February 26, at 7:30pm EST. Here is the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87340774345

The other is Wednesday, March 4, at 12pm EST. Here is the link for that: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88131661803

If you are interested, but can't make it this year, please attend one of these call because we may be doing this again next year!