{"id":93983,"date":"2023-02-28T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=93983"},"modified":"2025-10-03T10:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T14:58:16","slug":"how-to-have-a-successful-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-have-a-successful-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Have a Successful Marriage: First, Be Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What’s the key to a successful marriage<\/a>? What do happily married couples do differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to relationship researcher John Gottman<\/a>, the foundation of a successful and emotionally fulfilling marriage is marital friendship. If your marriage lacks this foundation, it’s only a matter of time before cracks begin to appear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how to have a successful marriage, according to Gottman and Silver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of\u00a0Shortform\u2019s guide to friendships<\/a>. If you like what you read here, there\u2019s plenty more to check out in the guide!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Improving Your Marital Friendship Is the Key to Marital Happiness<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work<\/em>, John Gottman (co-authored with Nan Silver) explains how to have a successful marriage, drawing from his research findings at the Love Lab, a laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle devoted to deciphering the secrets of happy couples. The authors argue that if you want a long-lasting and happy marriage, you must improve your marital friendship. In other words, you and your spouse must hold each other in high esteem and genuinely appreciate the time you spend together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: A 2014 study supports Gottman and Silver\u2019s contention that a strong marital friendship improves your relationship<\/a>: People who considered their spouse their best friend were more satisfied with their lives than those who did not. However, this finding was sex-dependent; women married to their best friends were much more<\/em> satisfied than men married to their best friends.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gottman and Silver explain that a strong marital friendship supports a happy marriage because it encourages a phenomenon known as \u201cpositive sentiment override,\u201d or PSO. If you have PSO, you trust that your partner is doing their best and assume that they have positive intentions. So you interpret your partner\u2019s actions in the best possible way\u2014which maintains positivity in the relationship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you don\u2019t<\/em> have a strong marital friendship, you may experience the opposite of PSO: \u201cnegative sentiment override,\u201d or NSO. If you have NSO, you assume that your partner is sabotaging you and has negative intentions. NSO leads you to interpret your partner\u2019s actions in the worst possible way\u2014fostering a negativity that permeates and ultimately destroys your relationship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: You may be more prone to having NSO take over your relationship if you\u2019re insecure<\/a>. In one study, couples were seated back to back and told that they were doing the same exercise; in reality, one person was asked to list everything in their house while the other was asked to list what bothered them about their partner. The partner who listed what bothered them typically listed just one or two things and finished earlier; if they were secure, they weren\u2019t too bothered to hear their partner listing things long after they were done. In contrast, insecure<\/em> partners were greatly affected by their partner\u2019s perceived criticism of them; they rated their relationship more negatively after hearing their partner scribbling away.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: \u201cPositive sentiment override\u201d and \u201cnegative sentiment override\u201d can apply to relationships outside of your marriage, too. At work, NSO can harm your team<\/a>: If you consistently expect the worst<\/a> from your team members, they won\u2019t do their best work. Conversely, PSO increases productivity: Expecting the best<\/a> from your team members encourages them to do their best work.)  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the key to a successful marriage? What do happily married couples do differently? According to relationship researcher John Gottman, the foundation of a successful and emotionally fulfilling marriage is marital friendship. If your marriage lacks this foundation, it’s only a matter of time before cracks begin to appear. Here’s how to have a successful marriage, according to Gottman and Silver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":51418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[920],"class_list":["post-93983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-the-seven-principles-for-making-marriage-work","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Have a Successful Marriage: First, Be Friends - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is the key to marital success? 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