Ellie 's Posts

Valentine’s Day: The Gottman Way

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Valentine's Day is a great opportunity to do something a little special with your partner, if you do it the Gottman way.

Build Bridges Of Trust

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

You can build trust with your partner with simple, everyday actions that show them you care and you're in this together.

Combat Stonewalling with Self-Care

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Nip stonewalling in the bud with a healthy alternative. The antidote to stonewalling is self-soothing.

The Trouble with Contempt

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Contempt to be the #1 predictor of divorce. What is contempt, and what makes this horseman the worst?

Accepting Responsibility

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

When it comes to your problems as a couple, ditch defensiveness and learn how to accept responsibility for your role. Here's how.

Emotional Attunement

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

It is impossible to nurture healthy relational dynamics without practicing attunement.

Arguments and Self-Care

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

By engaging in self-care, we can create the conditions necessary work out conflict and arguments with family and friends.

The Digital Age: Two Realities

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

You want to strike a balance or overcome the split between the online and offline parts of your life. Here's how.

The Digital Age: Who Am I?

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

To truly know your partner, especially in the Digital Age, it is necessary to first know yourself.

Homework Assignment: Choosing Better

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Choose to connect with the people in the room instead of connecting through technology. Here are ways to do just that.

The Digital Age: What’s Beneath the Conflict?

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

In our last post on The Gottman Relationship Blog, we introduced the topic of Conflict in Cyberspace. Today, we would like to explore the subject in greater depth.

Timeless Tips for Sleeping Well

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Research indicates that a sleepless night is associated with greater relationship conflict the following day.

Bringing Baby Home: The Research

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

In sixteen studies conducted on parents before and after their baby’s birth, Drs. John and Julie Gottman discovered the following.

Summer Romance: Turning Towards

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Turning towards one another can be easy in the summer months with these outdoor activities you can do with your partner.

How to Practice Self-Soothing

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Remember: the ability to self-soothe is one of the most important skills you can learn. Practicing it can help you not only in romantic relationships, but in all other areas of your life.

The Four Horsemen: Contempt

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Contempt is the worst of the four horsemen. It is the number one predictor of divorce, but it can be defeated.

The Four Horsemen: Criticism

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

The first of the Four Horsemen, and likely the most common, is criticism.

The Workplace: Things To Do Together

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

All of these activities are great ways to form or strengthen the emotional connection in the workplace. Try them out or make up your own.

Homework Assignment: Spring Cleaning

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Spring clean your marriage and refresh the love with these tips based on years of research from The Gottman Institute.

Physiological Self-Soothing

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Try something that may feel totally foreign in the heights of your distress: breathe.

Make Life Dreams Come True: Self-Discovery

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Follow this exercise where you play both the speaker and the listener to share the source behind conflict: life dreams and goals!

Manage Conflict: Moving Forward

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

The real predictor of a relationship’s failure is a couple’s inability to manage conflict in a healthy manner and to move forward.

Manage Conflict: Identifying Your Triggers

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Working on understanding each other’s triggers is one of the most important things that you can do to avoid hurting one another.

Manage Conflict: The Aftermath of a Fight

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

When you make repair attempts early, you can salvage the point of the conversation and create a more productive and positive outcome.

Homework Assignment: Compromise

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Many couples fail to compromise on issues because they go about trying to compromise in the wrong way.

Manage Conflict: The Art of Compromise

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

We’ve all been in the middle of an argument that we know we cannot win, understanding that our frustration has overwhelmed all sense of perspective. 

Six Tips for the Six Skills of Managing Conflict

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Sometimes you need to build up to having effective communication in your partnership. Here are the smalls steps it takes to master conflict management.

Build a Culture of Appreciation

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Negative Sentiment Override can kill any appreciation you have for your partner. Learn how to develop an eye for your partner's good characteristics.

Love Quiz: Fondness and Admiration

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

If life chipped away at your fondness and admiration for each other, the route to bringing them back begins with realizing how valuable they are.

Date Night in a Jar

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

A stash of date night ideas can present fun surprises for you and your partner when you want alone time to connect.

How to Know Your Bids

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

The first step to responding to bids is recognizing one when you see or hear it.

Turning Against Bids: A Relationship Killer

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Recognizing your interactions with your partner allows you to catch and reverse toxic patterns of behavior that cause damage to your relationship.

How to Set Goals for Self-Care

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Set goals, big and small, to take care of yourself and watch both you and your relationships get a boost of energy.

Building Trust In Stressful Times

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

If you establish positive rapport, you and your partner can make leaps and bounds towards the establishment of trust.

Mindfulness in Emotional Moments

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Watch how mindfulness allows you to increase your attention to mechanisms underlying the formation of stable, satisfying relationships. 

Expressing Compassion and Empathy

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Intimate conversation requires you to lean into your partner's pain before you offer advice or try to help.

Building Bridges

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

If partners build habits of turning towards each other in simple everyday moments, they build bridges of affection, fondness, and admiration.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

This theory discovered an enormous capacity to destroy human relationships.

‘Sliding Door’ Moments

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Sliding door moments are the seemingly inconsequential everyday moments that make or break the most important relationships in our lives.

The Three Boxes

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Drs. John and Julie Gottman divides the behaviors of conversing couples into three clear boxes: Nice, Neutral, and Nasty.

Inside the Love Lab

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Dr. Gottman’s research on trust is groundbreaking. Widely recognized as the world’s foremost researcher on marriage and relationships, his intuition and natural ease with people are not his only gifts. 

The Love Lab

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Dr. Gottman opens his long-awaited book, What Makes Love Last?, with an unsettling anecdote about trust: suspecting his wife of cheating, one man crept outside in the morning before he left for work to draw chalk marks on his wife's rear tires.

Managing Conflict: Recognizing Gridlock

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

By using this simple checklist, you can determine whether or not you have reached total gridlock in any of those infuriatingly repetitive problems you may have in your relationship.

Emotion Coaching Step 1: Empathy

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Use Emotion Coaching and empathy in your conversations with your child, and see the differences it makes in difficult moments.

Parenting as Your Kids Grow Up

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Managing conflict well and being your child's emotion coach are just a few effective parenting tips from the Gottmans.

Love Map Building

Ellie Lisitsa  //  

Learn the inner world of your partner by building love maps.