John Gottman who is a psychologist at the University of Washington has been studying how marriages work for the past twenty years. He has also been spending time developing the tools that you are going to need to keep your marriage working. Through his research, he has discovered that the quality of your friendship with your spouse is an important factor in keeping your marriage happy.

Gottman discovered that a happy marriage is based mainly on a deep friendship, mutual respect of each other, and on an enjoyment of each other's company. Marriages that are not made up of these factors tend to have a higher divorce rate. The reason that those marriages end up in divorce is that the couples have turned into adversaries rather than friends. While a friendship does not prevent arguments, it is a great way to prevent your arguments from getting out of hand.

Here are the seven principles that John Gottman discovered that you are going to need as tools to help make your marriage work. These tools are designed to help you cope with conflict in your marriage and in building a foundation to strengthen the friendship that is at the center of your marriage.

Principle one: Enhance your love maps
Your love map is what you use to store all of the important information about your spouse's life. You use your love map to help keep track of major events in your spouse's life. However, your love map is something that is going to be used constantly so you want to make sure that you update the facts and feelings inside the love map. Remember knowledge is power, the more you know about your spouse the more detailed your love map is going to be. Most couples had no problem spending time together and talking intimately when they first dated, which was how you determined that you loved each other. When you are married, you still need to carry on this kind of behavior because your needs and desires can change.

Principle two: Nurture your fondness and admiration
In order to have a long-lasting and rewarding marriage you are going to need some fondness and admiration in your relationship. Even people whose marriages are in trouble still feel that their spouse is worthy of honor and respect, even if they do not like them much anymore. Of course, the people who are happily married like each other, but you still need to think about the fact that friendships can be fragile. You want to avoid focusing on each other's flaws because if you do that you are going to end up feeling contempt or disgust with your spouse, especially if you are having a difference of opinion. What you want to do is show your spouse that you love them and appreciate them through the little and big things that you do.

Principle three: Turn toward each other instead of away
When you do not talk to your spouse or tell them that you value them the romance in your relationship can disappear. What you need to do is to let your spouse know that you love them, appreciate them, and value them everyday; this will help to keep the romance in your relationship alive. This does not mean that you have to share a long passionate kiss every few minutes; all you have to do is show that you care. For example, calling your spouse in the middle of the workday and leaving a short voice mail message letting them know that you are thinking about them. However, sharing a long passionate kiss is also a great way to show your spouse that you care. The best thing that you can do to turn toward each rather than away from each other is to spend quality time together.

Principle four: Let your partner influence you
It is hard having to share power in a relationship because that means at one point you are going to have to accede to the other's wishes. Studies have shown that husbands have more problems letting their wives influence them than wives do letting their husbands influence them. Usually what happens is that the wife will say something to her husband and he will respond by ignoring her, acting defensively, being critical, or being contemptuous. When he responds this way, all it does is make the conflict escalate. If you are a dominant male or female, what you need to do is ask your spouse to nicely point out when you are being domineering, defensive or disrespectful to them. This will help you learn more about your relationship. In addition, when you share power and decision making with your spouse you will be able to cope better in times of conflict.

Principle five: Solve your solvable problems
Every major is going to have problems because nobody can get along 100% of the time. There is always going to be times where you do not share the same opinion or even disagree about the right answer. What you need to learn to do is to determine which problems are solvable and which ones cannot be solved. Once you have identified your solvable problems the two of you need to sit down and resolve the conflict. How you resolve your problems can vary but the key to resolving any conflicts in a marriage is to have good manners. Here are the basic steps you want to take when trying to resolve conflicts in your marriage:

1. Being by talking nicely to your spouse, do not start yelling or screaming, no matter what the situation.
2. Try to offer solutions to the problems, but you also need to let your spouse know that you understand what they are saying. If you do not understand what is going on or why they are upset ask them to explain it to you again. What you are trying to do here is learn to make and receive repair attempts.
3. Make yourself and your spouse feel better. Try apologizing for what you have done wrong or for making them feel that way. You want to acknowledge your spouse's feelings and moods, just as they need to do with yours.
4. Compromise. When trying to reach a decision you are not always going to agree with what your spouse has to say, which is why you are having a conflict in the first place. This means that you are not always going to agree on the solution either. What you need to do is make a compromise as to how to solve the problem, which will make both of you happy.
5. Be tolerant of each other's faults. Remember that nobody is perfect, you make mistakes and so does your spouse. Rather than bringing up faults or trying to place blame, simply accept the fact that you and your spouse have some bad habits, do not use them as weapons or you will never manage to solve your problems.

Principle six: Overcome gridlock
Some problems are never going to be solved and rather than feeling hopeless about this you need too learn how to live with the problem. If you get to feeling hopeless about not solving the issue you can end up bring bad feelings into your marriage. What you want to do is move forward, try talking to your spouse to help discover their hopes and dreams. Try working with them to help them realize their dreams because incorporating each other's goals into what your concept of marriage is will help you to move forward from the unsolvable problems.

Principle seven: Create shared meaning
In your marriage, you are looking to create a shared life together, not a separate existence from one another. Moreover, one thing that helps you to create a life together is a shared meaning, which includes a culture that is filled with rituals and symbols of your life together. It also includes an appreciation for your roles and goals, as well as an understanding of your family. What you need to do is sit down and talk to your spouse about the rituals and customs that you believe in and then listen to what they believe in. Then sit down and talk about what rituals and customs you want to have in your marriage and put them into practice.

Remember that marriage is not a something that is given; in order for it to be successful you are going to have to make it work for you and your spouse. The key to making a marriage work is learning about the various tools that you can use to enhance your relationship, but also putting those tools to work. If you do not put the tools to work, the time you spent learning about them will be wasted. In order to fix something you are going to need the right tools for the job, the same applies for fixing your marriage.