List one of the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work as applied in the Gottman Method.

• A. Enhance Love Maps
• B. Avoid Talking About Feelings
• C. Keep Couple Problems Private
• D. Suppress Individual Needs

Answer: (A)

Knowing your partner deeply and keeping that understanding up to date is a central practice in the Gottman Method. One of the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is called Enhance Love Maps. This involves actively learning and updating knowledge about your partner—their history, preferences, worries, aspirations, and daily life—so you can respond with accuracy, care, and empathy. When you cultivate these up-to-date love maps, you build a strong friendship at the heart of the relationship, which makes it easier to handle conflicts, support each other, and feel connected even when stress rises.

The other options run counter to this approach. Avoiding talk about feelings undermines the emotional connection the method seeks to nurture; keeping couple problems private and suppressing individual needs similarly impede open communication and mutual responsiveness.