“We’re all in the same soup,” John Gottman likes to say (www.gottman.com).  It’s his way of acknowledging – even with all of his hard-earned knowledge about what makes marriages work, after 35 years of extensive and comprehensive research – that he and his wife continue to wrestle with issues and disappointments like every married couple.

Nor have I been immune to the hardship and heartbreak of relationship.  My husband and I struggled for years – eighteen to be exact – to create a loving, sustainable, harmonious relationship.  Despite years of giving it the best we had to give, we were unable to create a successful and life-long marriage.  Not for lack of desire nor lack of effort did our marriage end. (Read more…)