Julie Schwartz Gottman

Intimacy inevitably creates conflict.

The absence of conflict doesn’t indicate a strong relationship—in fact, it can lead to exactly the opposite.

The absence of conflict doesn’t indicate a strong relationship—in fact, it can lead to exactly the opposite.

Conflict is connection. It’s how we figure out who we are, what we want, who our partners are and who they are becoming, and what they want.

We’ve found that you can fight with kindness, with love, and with peace at the end.

minutes of a fight can predict the status of the relationship six years later.[5]

three minutes of a fight can predict the status of the relationship six years later.[5]

during conflict, couples who exhibited four key behaviors we call “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness) were likely to split an average of five years post-wedding.[7]

ow we fight is, as we’ve said, how we communicate and connect.

When we fight, we should be trying to create something better. That’s the ultimate goal of conflict: to create something better for yourself, for you and your partner as a couple, and for the world. Conflict doesn’t have to break us apart. Conflict and peace are not mutually exclusive. We can arrive at peace through conflict. We can combine kindness and gentleness with fighting. We can grow closer because of conflict. But to do this, we need to get to the heart of our conflicts.