from Netflix. “You still need intimacy,” says Dave Willis. “If the pioneers figured it out and they were in one room, so can you.”
Plan out your days, but not too tightly. John Gottman has a history of asthma and pneumonia so he’s not leaving the couple’s home on Orcas Island, in Washington, until the coronavirus threat subsides. Julie does all the shopping. They recommend making a calendar on Sunday mornings and marking it with all the points where each spouse has no flexibility and building from there. Ashley and Dave Willis have four sons between the ages of 5 and 15, who are currently home from school in Texas. “The homeschooling hit people hard,” Ashley says. “It adds a whole new level of intensity.” She was a teacher, so she’s in charge of education, but she calls on Dave to pick up things he wasn’t doing before. “It’s triage mode,” says Dave. “What jobs need my attention at the moment? We’re all doing jobs we don’t normally do.” Any older kids can be given more responsibility; even the quite young will rise to the challenge.
Make an appointment for your fights. If a seemingly insignificant spat is suddenly getting out of hand, the Gottmans recommend postponing it for at least half an hour but not for longer than 24 hours. “One person calls a time-out and says a time when they will come back and continue the conversation,” says Julie. They then get out of each other’s way and do something that calms them—“anything that brings down the sense they are being attacked, which we call flooding.” At the appointed time they continue the discussion. Under the Gottmans’ “conflict blueprint,” as they call it, spouses can work on a resolution only after they can state each other’s point of view to the satisfaction of the other person. “Ninety-five percent of it is about understanding your partners’ point of view,” says John. The Gottmans plan to make some of their exercises available as an app soon.
Take your arguments elsewhere. Your kids don’t want to see you fight. The Willises go for a drive or a walk, sometimes giving their kids a list of things to photograph to keep them occupied. “Our best conversations are when we’re walking,” says Ashley. “Sometimes on a walk people will open up more because they’re side by side.” The Gottmans used to sit on the floor in the bathroom where their daughter couldn’t hear their arguments.
Respect the now invisible boundaries. Even though he or she might not look busy, your partner is not just an empty whiteboard waiting for your thoughts and
WHAT GOD PUTS TOGETHER
” She was a teacher, so she’s in charge of education, but she calls on Dave to pick up things he wasn’t doing before."