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attempt to decode marital interactions ever invented. Typically, he will videotape a couple while they discuss something about which they disagree. That in itself is nothing special. What sets Gottman apart is his method of analysis. He and his researchers then break down the tape for both content and affect. He has developed an elaborate scoring system that covers virtually every emotion a couple might express. Each fleeting emotional tic is scored so that a few seconds’ exchange will result in several notations for each person. The love lab also adds another layer of data—the couples are hooked up to heart monitors as well as other biofeedback equipment to measure people’s stress levels during the conversation. To give you some idea of how rigorous and exhaustive this method is, Gottman estimates that it takes twenty-eight hours to analyze a single hour of videotape.

What all this painstaking analysis offers is a level of precision unequalled by anyone else studying marriage. Gottman’s methods are incredibly good at determining which couples will succeed and which will fail. How good? If he analyzes an hour-long conversation, he can predict with 95 percent accuracy if a couple will still be married fifteen years later. Needless to say, after years of practice, Gottman has become spectacularly good at seeing what most of us miss. He understands relationships in the way that Tiger Woods plays golf—with a kind of effortless grasp that makes the rest of us look inept.

We can’t all be John Gottman, but we can use the insights that he has developed. For those in a relationship who want to know whether their partnership will succeed or fail right now, Gottman has outlined a number of patterns that can help reveal whether or not newlyweds will get divorced, which he can identify based on watching the couple for only three minutes. The first crucial element is how the discussion starts. Women usually are the ones to open the conversation (one reason why the words a man most fears to hear are, “We need to talk”), and they establish the tone of the exchange. The question is, does the woman begin with a harsh or a soft opening? That will determine much of what follows. Second, does the woman complain about something specific (I wish you would take the garbage out) or something global and character related (You are so lazy—you can’t even bother to take the garbage out). If a couple can master the soft opening and the specific complaint, they will be a long way toward a happy marriage. The partner’s reaction to all of this is also crucial. Is he open to his wife’s influence? Yes, it’s true—listening to your wife is incredibly important for a happy marriage. Does his response amplify over time (in other words, does he stay calm or get angry)? And does he get defensive, which will make him reject his wife’s influence and likely get more angry? If the husband tends to get defensive, the couple also has a higher chance of divorce. There—success or failure in three minutes or less.

Unfortunately, even in the cause of scientific inquiry, married couples are reluctant to put their squabbles on display for an importunate author like myself, so I have had to turn to a different source for my marital spats. In contrast to the other chapters, my examples here are not drawn from real life but from literature, and I believe I have discovered an exemplary couple when it comes to illustrating Gottman’s principles of communication in a happy marriage: P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster. Let’s take an illustrative case from “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest.”

JEEVES: Pardon me, sir, but not that tie.

WOOSTER: Eh?

JEEVES: Not that tie with the heather-mixture lounge, sir.

Notice the soft opening of Jeeves.

WOOSTER: What’s wrong with this tie? I’ve seen you give it a nasty look before. Speak out like a man! What’s the matter with it?

Wooster responds with exactly the sort of defensiveness that Gottman warns against.

JEEVES: Too ornate, sir.

Again, Jeeves is an exemplar of restraint. His criticism of the tie