The Sound Relationship House: How to Build Better Relationships

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It’s common for couples to hear that conflict in a relationship is natural. However, how couples should healthily navigate conflict to maintain their relationship is not often discussed. To help with this problem and aid in couples therapy, psychologists John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman devised the “Sound Relationship House,” a well-researched theory on what elements make a healthy relationship.

The Sound Relationship House is built on the idea that improved friendship, conflict management, and shared meaning between couples make a healthy relationship by creating love and mutual understanding. For over two decades now, this theory has helped make countless couples happy, regardless of class, ethnicity, and sexuality. In particular, it has been found to develop couples’ relationship satisfaction and problem-solving skills.

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Using a house as a metaphor for a secure relationship, the Sound Relationship House has seven levels that couples can go through to better their relationship, as well as two walls. These “weight-bearing” walls are trust and commitment, which serve as the pillars that hold couples together as they go through the seven levels. While trust enables couples to rely on each other, commitment makes them stick together.

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What Levels Make Up the Sound Relationship House?

Floor 1: Build Love Maps – On this floor, couples are supposed to build a “Love Map” to explore each other’s inner worlds. Coined by John Gottman, the term Love Map refers to the part of your brain where you store information about your partner. This can be gotten from asking important questions like the following: What are your partner’s favorite ways to be soothed? Who is your partner’s best friend? What stresses your partner right now? What are your partner’s hobbies?

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Having a richly detailed Love Map creates a strong foundation of friendship and intimacy, which allows couples to be rational and not lose sight of each other in the face of problems.

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Floor 2: Share Fondness and Admiration – This floor encourages couples to verbalize their fondness of each other to inspire affection and respect. This increases feelings of being cared for and valued in a relationship. You might give a compliment and say something like “You look good today,” or acknowledge their actions with something such as “Thank you for taking out the trash.” 

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Floor 3: Turn Towards Instead of Away – Attempts to connect with a partner are referred to as “bids.” To turn towards a bid is to respond positively to your partner, putting money in their “emotional bank account.” The positive recognition of each other’s bids through deposits of courtesy, kindness, and honesty leads to a stronger relationship. For instance, your partner asking for a date night is a bid for your emotional and physical affection. By accepting this bid, you turn towards instead of away from them.

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Floor 4: The Positive Perspective – Once people are consistent with updating their Love Maps, sharing fondness and admiration, and turning towards each other instead of away, then positive interactions naturally override negative ones in the relationship. Couples are able to see the best in each other on this floor, and this further strengthens their relationship. For example, when your partner forgets that you scheduled an important date, you are able to give them the benefit of the doubt instead of immediately calling them negligent.

Floor 5: Manage Conflict – Gottman distinguishes between “managing conflict” and “resolving conflict.” According to him, most marital conflicts are of the perpetual category rather than the resolvable one. This means that you need to accept that there will always be perpetual differences between you and your partner, whether it be in beliefs or preferences. This entails being gentle in conflict, compromising, engaging in dialogue, and maintaining a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions during the conflict—otherwise, an impasse will be reached in the relationship.

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Floor 6: Make Life Dreams Come True – Good companionship means couples can honor each other’s aspirations and dreams. Couples should share and support each other’s dreams to enrich their Love Maps and increase intimacy and trust in the relationship.

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Floor 7: Create Shared Meaning – Couples should be intentional about building a life together. Sharing life goals, roles, and the like will lead to a deeper connection and stability. For this floor, John Gottman suggests making “Rituals of Connection” that define you and your partner as a unit. This can be something as simple as having dinner together at your favorite place every Friday night.

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Overall, the Sound Relationship House is a foundational theory in couples therapy that emerged from a systematic analysis of relationship interactions. Going through the levels of the house can help you and your partner strengthen your bond.

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References:

• Davoodvandi, M., Nejad, S.N., & Farzad, V. (2018). Examining the effectiveness of Gottman Couple Therapy on improving marital adjustment and couples’ intimacy. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry 13(2), 135–141. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6037577/
• Navarra, R.J. & Gottman, J.M. (2017). Sound relationship house in Gottman Method couples therapy. In J. Lebow, A. Chambers, & D. Breunlin (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy (pp. 1–4). Springer.
• The Gottman Institute. (2024, June 25). What is the Sound Relationship House? https://www.gottman.com/blog/what-is-the-sound-relationship-house/ 
• Vinney, C. (2023, November 15). Overview of the Gottman Method. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-gottman-method-5191408

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