MARRIAGE MASTERS VS DISASTERS  

You may know Dr. John Gottman as the marriage expert who can predict divorce with over 90% accuracy. His life’s work on marital stability and divorce prediction is world-renowned.

In his book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, Dr. Gottman noted how on the basis of a 15-minute conversation, researchers at the Gottman Institute could predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple would be married or divorced within 10 years. Gottman and his team were looking for positive to negative interactions, and they pinpointed how “The Masters” had far more positives than negatives (at least 5 to 1) in their interactions with one another.

In The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. Gottman revealed that “96% of the time you can predict the outcome of a conversation based on the first 3 minutes of these 15-minute interactions. A harsh load of negatively-powered words simply dooms you to failure” (pg. 32).

One word distinguished the masters from the disasters, and that word is gentle. When you begin all your conversations with a gentle start up, you too can be a master in your marriage. Masters deal with conflict as being like a soccer ball that each one kicks gently back and forth; whereas, the disasters see their partner as being the soccer ball. At the forefront of their minds, the masters see their partners as teammates, not opponents. They know that if their partner loses, they lose, and if their partner wins, they both win, so they always want their partner to win. It’s either win/win or lose/lose; for the masters, there is never a win/lose scenario.

Whenever René and I share this information, the question arises: “If a couple is stuck in a win/lose scenario, how do they move from being marriage disasters to marriage masters?”

When we conduct our “Prescription for Love” seminars, along with Marlon and Doreen Cliffe, we teach couples the key strategies for how they can become “masters” at transforming their marriages and consistently, actively improving all their relationships.

Throughout this year, we are scheduled to visit dozens of churches all over Canada to share proven strategies and principles for transforming marriages, and we receive literally hundreds of uplifting testimonies, some like the following: “When we were invited to attend your ‘Prescription for Love’ seminar, my wife and I had decided this would be our last chance. Thank you for helping us put our marriage back on track.” This is significant because apart from the couple, their children also suffer when they are caught in the crossfire of an unhappy marriage.

If you wish to learn more about “Prescription for Love,” or how you can have us to visit your church, please, call us at It Is Written Canada: (905) 404- 6510, or email: [email protected], or write to: It Is Written Canada, Box 2010, Oshawa, ON, L1H 7V4, CANADA.

To hear how Marlon and Doreen Cliffe went from being marriage disasters to marriage masters, and how they had to hold on tightly to God’s almighty hand through their many struggles, you can watch their compelling story on It Is Written Canada this month on the dozens of networks where It Is Written Canada is aired across Canada and around the world. Or simply go to iiw.ca or It Is Written Canada’s YouTube videos and click on the program entitled: “Marriage Masters vs Disasters”.