Gottman, John M., and Nan Silver. (1999). “Principle 2: Nurture your fondness and admiration,” in The Seven Principles for Making Marriages Work (Chapter Four, 61-77). New York: Three Rivers Press (Random House, Inc.).

A couple’s fond memories of their early days are evidence that underneath whatever mutual antagonism they may have, there are still glimmerings of what Gottman calls the fondness and admiration system. This means that they each retained some, fundamental sense that the other was worthy of being respected and even liked.

If a couple still has a functioning fondness and admiration system, their marriage is salvageable. Couples can learn to unearth those positive feelings even more and put them to work to save their marriage.

Fondness and admiration are two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance.

Although happily married couples may feel driven to distraction at times by their partner’s personality flaws, they still feel that the person they married is worthy of honor and respect. When this sense is completely missing from a marriage, the relationship cannot be revived.

LEARNING FROM HISTORY

The best test of whether a couple still has a functioning fondness and admiration system is usually how they view their past. If your marriage is now in deep trouble, you’re not likely to elicit much praise on each other’s behalf by asking about the current state of affairs. But by focusing on your past, you can often detect embers of positive feelings.

Of course, some marriages do come up empty. In these relationships the antagonism has metastasized like a virulent cancer, even going backward in time and destroying the couple’s positive memories.

Gottman has found 94 percent of the time that couples who put a positive spin on their marriage’s history are likely to have a happy future as well. When happy memories are distorted, it’s a sign that the marriage needs help.

Having a fundamentally positive view of your spouse and your marriage is a powerful buffer when bad times hit. When you have this reserve of good feeling, you are not likely to have cataclysmic thoughts about separation and divorce each time you have an argument.

THE ANTIDOTE TO CONTEMPT

People who are happily married like each other. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be happily married. But fondness and admiration can be fragile unless you remain aware of how crucial they are to the friendship that is at the core of any good marriage.

By simply reminding yourself of your spouse’s positive qualities — even as you grapple with each other’s flaws — you can prevent a happy marriage from deteriorating. The simple reason is that fondness and admiration are antidotes for contempt.

If you maintain a sense of respect for your spouse, you are less likely to act disgusted with him or her when you disagree. So fondness and admiration prevent the couple from being trounced by the four horsemen.

If your mutual fondness and admiration have been completely extinguished, your marriage is in dire trouble. Without the fundamental belief that your spouse is worthy of honor and respect, where is the basis for any kind of rewarding relationship?

There are many couples whose fondness and admiration have receded to barely detectable levels. Although it seems that the fire is out, some embers still burn. Fanning them is the crucial first step in salvaging such a marriage.

Fondness and Admiration Questionnaire

When you value each other highly, you have a shield that can protect your relationship from being overwhelmed by any negativity that also exists between you.

Although it might seem obvious to you that people who are in love have a high regard for each other, it’s common for spouses to lose sight of some of their fondness and admiration over time. Remember that this fondness and admiration is a gift worth cherishing.

There are many couples in whom the fondness and admiration system has not died but is buried under layers of negativity, hurt feelings, and betrayal. By reviving the positive feelings that still lie deep below, you can vastly improve your marriage.

If your fondness and admiration are being chipped away, the route to bringing them back always begins with realizing how valuable they are. They are crucial to the long-term happiness of a relationship because they prevent contempt from becoming an overwhelming presence in your life.

Contempt is a corrosive that, over time, breaks down the bond between husband and wife. The better in touch you are with your deep-seated positive feelings for each other, the less likely you are to act contemptuous of your spouse when you have a difference of opinion.

FANNING THE FLAMES

Positive feelings that have long been buried can be exhumed simply by thinking and talking about them. You can do this by meditating a bit on your partner and what makes you cherish him or her.

When you acknowledge and openly discuss positive aspects of your partner and your marriage, your bond is strengthened. This makes it much easier to address the problem areas in your marriage and make some positive changes.
Exercise 1: “I Appreciate...”

In Gottman’s workshops, he can see the positive benefits of this exercise immediately. The room is filled with warm smiles and laughter. Couples who began the session sitting stiffly and awkwardly suddenly seem relaxed. Just looking at them, you can tell that something they had lost is being regained. The sense of hope that their marriage can be saved is almost palpable.

Exercise 2: The History and Philosophy of Your Marriage

Most couples are helped all the more by talking about the happy events of their past. Completing this questionnaire together will bring you face to face, once again, with the early years of your relationship, and help you remember how and why you became a couple.

       Part One: The History of Your Relationship
       Part Two: Your Philosophy of Marriage

Most couples find that recalling their past together recharges their relationship in the here and now. Answering these questions often reminds couples of the love and great expectations that inspired their decision to marry in the first place.

This can give couples who thought their marriage was already over the glimmerings of hope that lead them to struggle on to save their relationship. Just repeating the two exercises above from time to time may be enough to salvage and strengthen your fondness and admiration for each other. But if the negativity is deeply entrenched, a marriage may require a longer-term, more structured approach, which you’ll find in the next exercise.

Exercise 3: A Seven-Week Course in Fondness and Admiration

This exercise is designed to get you into the habit of thinking positively about your partner when you’re apart. If you are angry, stressed, or feeling distant from your spouse, you may tend to focus on his or her negative characteristics. This leads to distress-maintaining thoughts, which in turn leave you feeling ever more distant and isolated in your marriage. This exercise counteracts that tendency by training you to focus your thoughts on your partner’s positive characteristics, even if you aren’t having such a great day together.

For each day below there is a positive statement, or thought, followed by a task. Think about each statement and say it to yourself many times throughout the day while you and your spouse are apart. In some cases the thought may not seem to apply to your spouse or your marriage, especially if your fondness and admiration have dimmed.

The statement does not have to describe the typical state of affairs between you at the present time. If you can think of a single instant or episode where the statement applied, focus on that memory. Also be sure to complete the simple task that follows each positive statement.

Do the exercise each day, no matter how you happen to be feeling about your relationship or your spouse. Don’t stop even if you just had a major blow-up or are feeling very distant from each other. Although this exercise might sound silly or hokey, it is based on a wide body of research into the power of rehearsing positive thoughts.

This approach is one of the tenets of cognitive therapy, which has proven highly successful in helping people overcome depression. When people fall into a depression, their thinking may become disordered — they see everything in an extremely negative light, which just adds to their sense of hopelessness. But if, over time, they deliberately accustom their mind to a different, positive way of thinking, the sense of hopelessness can be lifted.

This exercise is an experiment in offering the same hope to marriage. What you’re really doing is rehearsing a more positive way to think about your partner and your relationship.

Like any rehearsal, if you do it often enough, the words (and more importantly, the thoughts) will become second nature.

Sample Exam Items

1.	fill in the blank. The best test of whether a couple still has a functioning fondness and admiration system is by how they view their ________________ ?
a.	current state of affairs
b.	own sense of self
c.	relationship with each other
d.	sexual relationship
e.	future goals for their marriage
f.	past

2.	According to Gottman, what is(are) the most crucial element(s) in a rewarding and long-lasting romance?
a.	mutual respect
b.	detailed love map
c.	warmth and affection
d.	good communication skills
e.	admiration and fondness
f.	love and forgiveness