hi there i’m greg pop check imagine being married to someone who regularly goes out of their way to make your life easier and more pleasant someone who’s willing to make little sacrifices just to see a smile its as if this person said i do to the marriage not just on your wedding day every day relationship experts call these qualities emotional report and benevolence research by the gottman institute found that healthy couples maintain a twenty to one ratio of these sorts of positive interactions where they’re not in conflict can you imagine how that might affect a marriage according to gottman couples with high levels of emotional support and benevolence are more likely to give one another the benefit of the doubt when one of them accidentally offends the other such couples are better at avoiding conflict and handling it more gracefully when it occurs high levels of benevolence lead to greater trust to and that in turn leads to greater intimacy and sharing thankfully