What Makes Love Last? A Rare In-Person Interview with Drs. John and Julie Gottman

I started working with the Loving Children, Loving Families project with a question - a yearning desire to understand one thing: What makes love last?  Day and night, I saw couple after couple transform. Groups of 2-20 couples gathered around on the second floor of a small house, turned non-profit center, in Bothell, WA. Couples found ways to discuss the taboo. The hidden. The feared. Looking into each other’s eyes, couples learned how to use Gentle Start Up to discuss their problems. They learned how to bring more love into their lives. Each day, I watched masses of kids enter the non-profit with their parents. I saw the children transformed as their parents stopped complaining about them. Mom and Dad stopped saying: “Our son has a problem. He has a short temper and he yells a lot. We need you to help us change him.” Instead they began to say: “Our son is like this because we set a bad example. We yell a lot and get angry easily. Let’s be better partners to each other. Let’s help Tommy by being better partners.” It wasn't just the couples and the children who were changing. To me, this was more than just a job. This sparked a passion and talent within me that made me feel alive. The Gottman’s research had become part of my obsession. <p style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, s