I am completing my BCC (Board Certified Coaching) specialization in Life and Relationship Coaching with a top school in the International Coaching Federation and am studying the works of John Gottman, best-selling marriage therapist through a certified Red Pill lens. I have completed both “The 7 principles of making marriage work” and “The man’s guide to women."

Let me express my extreme disappointment. While he offers a number of improvements over traditional marriage therapy and spends time rightly dissecting the failures of therapy, his Blue Pill conditioning and no doubt his co-author and oneitis wife for life ultimately overwhelms his work, making him miss critical pieces of the puzzle.

First THE GOOD. Gottman has some good ideas and correctly identifies the problems with traditional marriage counseling but unfortunately, he offers an insufficient solution with gaping empty spaces the size of supermassive black holes.

Trad-Counseling is all about “COMMUNICATION” and “CONFLICT MAINTENANCE” and Gottman points out that in traditional marriage counseling you will learn how to talk and talk and talk and talk. Then you will learn how to “argue effectively” and to practice “active listening.” That is, you sit their and pay attention while your wife screams at you. Your job is to SHUT UP AND LISTEN and then reflect back your wife’s pain until she understands that you care about her and she feels “safe.” (I just puked in my mouth).

Gottman points out that, surprisingly, this strategy works less than half the time. In fact, most couples are made WORSE by this type of marriage counseling!! Yes, we know!

Gottman managed to singlehandedly improve counseling success when he figured out the Four Horsemen of the Divorce Apocalypse which are detailed in my previous post and which are: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonwewalling.

Couples who have 1 or more of these as a regular part of the relationship do very poorly and are at extremely high risk for divorce. Gottman claims that he can predict with 71% accuracy whether a couple will divorce in the next 5 years after a simple 15- minute conversation simply by watching for verbal and nonverbal cues for signs of the 4 horsemen: Contempt, Criticism, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.

Gottman systematized it even better and added the concepts of “flooding” and “failed repair attempts” to the 4 Horseman. He also added "harsh startups" (being a bitch and a cunt from the beginning) and negative memories (focusing on the bad things that happened instead of the good) to complete his predictive method. Flooding occurs when your sympathetic nervous system activates while having a discussion with the wife. That is, you get nervous, increased heart rate, sweating etc etc. Flooding means that YOUR WIFE activates the fight or flight instinct in you. This is not good.

Finally, there are “Failed Repair Attempts” which occur when one party tries to defuse the problem with a joke or some other way and the other party interprets the “Repair Attempt” the wrong way. This is also not good. A big subset of couples have learned to control the horses using “Repairs.” However, Couples who “flood” and do poorly with “repair attempts” AND have the 4 Horseman AND remember their past less than fondly AND start out in default bitch mode with each other are very likely to have a failed marriage.

In short, Gottman can predict 91% of the time who is going to stay married and who will be divorced in 5 years using the following major criteria. Let me analyze them one at a time:

    1. Flooding (nervous, pulse pounding response to your spouse and not in a good way);

Gottman solution: Breathe

MRP SOLUTION: Give less fucks. Read the Stoics.

    1. Failed Repair Attempts (Somebody tries to defuse it and the other whines you are not taking me seriously).

Gottman Solution: Educate the couple

MRP SOLUTION: We have good success teaching the men to not take it personally and to get over it but not so good with women. However, if the man doesn't get butthurt and takes charge of the conversation the woman can't do to much damage.

And;

    1. The 4 Horseman,

-Contempt:

Gottman Solution: Imagine your wife as a strong-independent woman worthy of respect (Basically Cognitive Restructuring, STOP thinking about her like that!)

MRP SOLUTION: Become a man who is not contemptible. If your wife is contemptible then get a new wife or learn to appreciate her for her feminine charm rather than her pontificates on religion and politics.

-Criticism:

GOTTMAN SOLUTION: Stop it.

*MRP SOLUTION: From the wife- IGNORE, it's a shit test. Nothing to talk about. Shred it like toilet paper. From you: Stop! Does a good leader spend his time whining and criticizing?

-Defensiveness:

GOTTMAN SOLUTION: Stop blaming the partner. Defensiveness is just externalization although if it is a woman being defensive it must mean the husband is attacking her.

MRP SOLUTION: Don't be a bitch. If the wife is Defensive THIS IS A COMFORT TEST. Provide comfort and stop attacking.

and Stonwewalling

GOTTMAN SOLUTION: Primarily men stonewall so it must be bad. Stop it. Even though "talking" doesn't work you must talk.

MRP SOLUTION: Use Stonewalling to ACTIVELY PUNISH your wife for bad behavior. Manage the conflict by periodically offering an olive branch and realize that Stonewalling is very aversive to women. They hate it when their complaints are ignored. Stonewalling can gravitate quickly to "checking out" so be very very careful when using this.

Let me summarize Gottman’s “Good” ideas: First, trad-therapy has almost no success teaching the whole talk, talk, talk, talk thing along with a bit of strategy to avoid getting into an emotional fight (aka “pass her shit tests”). Second, therapy improved when therapists offered the advice to “look for the good” rather than assuming the bad (because this improves the odds that a “Repair Attempt” will succeed rather than fail. In other words, talk, talk, talk didn’t work so they added the advice to avoid being a total cunt to your partner and that seemed to work a bit better.

Now for the Bad. Gottman watched married couples over a 40 year period and in some ways did the exact opposite of MRP. Gottman figured out what successful couples do and then assumes that teaching not successful couples how to do that will help them to be successful. On MRP we took the NOT successful couples and figured out strategies to move them towards the man’s definition of success. Alas, Gottman is far more concerned with the woman’s idea of success.

Like almost all “counselors” he views men and women as totally interchangeable if it requires the MAN to change but completely immutable if it requires the woman to change. They are only interchangeable to the feminine, NEVER to the masculine. See if you can identify the pattern:

On the issue of SEX, he repeatedly claims that women need lots of hugs and touching and “friendship” in order to “feel safe” to have sex but men need to completely change their biology. Men need to be like women and realize that the goal of sex is intimacy, not getting an orgasm. Women don’t need to orgasm to have a fulfilling sexual experience so obviously men don’t need it either! Men should be content to hold the wife and sweetly caress her and this will make her more likely to have sex later. Amazingly he goes further and suggest that the low drive partner- the wife- should be given ALL the power to decide when and where and how the couple will have sex. He even states that a husband should REWARD a wife who is denying him sex by being affectionate!

MRP SOLUTION: Activate the known attraction triggers in women. Become more masculine, lift, build an attractive body, lead, don’t get butthurt with Shit Tests or Sexual denials. Ultimately, if the wife won’t put out, you should have options so that it doesn’t matter if she want’s to play her silly, hurtful, and extremely harmful game all by herself. Also, Shut the Fuck Up about your pain (this is part of being masculine) but when your woman is behaving decently towards you take the time to actually PAY ATTENTION AND LISTEN TO HER for several minutes every day.

On the issue of HOUSEWORK his “solution” is different and so over the top and in your face I am still stunned. The answer is (he helpfully bolds and capitalizes it for us) THE MAN NEEDS TO DO MORE. In fact, he goes even further and says the amount of housework a man needs to do DEPENDS ON THE WIFE. If SHE FEELS you need to do more then you need to do more. I need a drink after puking in my mouth twice now.

MRP SOLUTION: Lead! Lead your home, your house, and your wife and your family. If work needs to be done then fucking do it. It is your house and your wife, not the other way around.

On the issue of IN-LAWS, his “solution” is ALWAYS TAKE THE SIDE OF THE WIFE AGAINST YOUR MOTHER. No word on whether the wife is supposed to take the husbands side with her mother but I can guess how he would advise couples. Ultimately the wife decides.

MRP SOLUTION: You are the man and while it is true that publicly you want to take your wife’s side most of the time, this depends on whether the wife is actually right. A strong Red Pill man would lay down the law with both women in his life. You two need to get along etc. A RP man is not going to play Captain Save-a-ho even if the ho is his wife and it is hardly “Red Pill” to side against your mother even when she is right.

On the issue OF FINANCES and MONEY the solution is to compromise and make a list and a budget. Leadership? What is that? Women want to have sex with men who negotiate with them. Everybody knows that. Ultimately the wife decides.

MRP SOLUTION: Man leads, woman is the helpmeat. Budgets are great. Leadership is better.

On the issue of CHILDREN the solution is THE HUSBAND NEEDS TO BE MORE INVOLVED. MAYBE HE COULD GET AN ARTIFICIAL BOOB THAT HE STRAPS ON AND DELIVERS MILK. For the first time in two books and some 500 pages he actually suggests that the woman has some responsibility- she should back off and let the Dad play with the baby- however, she should carefully watch him to make sure he is not harming the baby. Mom decides.

MRP SOLUTION: Leadership does not include strapping on fake boobs. Good Gravy!

Finally, the Ugly. There is not a single word in either book devoted to “attraction” and this “world-renowned” therapist clearly has NO CLUE about the difference between making women wet and making women warm and comfortable. He thinks they are the same thing and tries to get men who have already been friend zoned by their wives to be MORE BETA and MORE weepy/emotional/emotive/talkative with a sex denying wife. He views pornography as “cheating” (unless the wife gives her royal permission) and while continually mentioning that the man has to do this, and that, and this, and that, and this, the only time in two full books he instructed the woman to do something was telling her to “let” the dad be a father but then spends almost twice as much ink telling wives to watch carefully in case this horrid beast harms the child.

I appreciate the effort moving the ball understanding the dynamic of the 4 horseman, repair attempts and flooding but on balance I award you no points….and may God have mercy on your soul.