The last post in our series on what John Gottman has to say about the three phases of love ends today with Phase 3.
Phase 3: Building Commitment and Loyalty
“Phase 3 of love is about building true commitment and loyalty. It is about a couple either cherishing one another and nurturing gratitude for what they have with their partner, or the couple nurturing resentment for what they think is missing. This third phase is about making a deeper love last a lifetime, or slowly nurturing a betrayal.
An important metric in Phase 3 of love is what I call the fairness metric. The sense that power is fairly distributed in a relationship is what the fairness metric is all about. It is very difficult to establish deep and lasting trust in a relationship that has an unwelcome power asymmetry, one in which the distribution of power feels unfair to at least one person.
Although love appears to be a process that is highly unpredictable, my decades of research and the research of my colleagues have discovered that the opposite is true.”
You absolutely cannot go wrong when investigating what John Gottman has to say regarding relationships. He is one of the true pioneers in the field, and his research has been instrumental in shaping the field of couples therapy. He is easily accessible to the lay person, so do not hesitate to pick up one of his books. You will not be disappointed.
Until next time, Peace.