The Oasis by FOLA

Dr. John Gottman has spent over forty years studying couples in his research laboratory — affectionately known as the "Love Lab" — at the University of Washington. His team has observed thousands of couples, tracked their physiological responses during conflict, and followed up years later to see who stayed together and who didn't.

The result? He can predict divorce with 94% accuracy.

But the variable that separates the "masters" from the "disasters" of relationships is not what most people think. It's not how often you fight. It's not whether you agree on the big things. It's not even how in love you feel.

It's how quickly and effectively you repair after rupture.

The Four Horsemen Are Real — But Incomplete

You've probably heard of Gottman's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" — the four communication behaviours that predict relationship failure:

1. Criticism — attacking your partner's character instead of their behaviour
2. Contempt — treating your partner with disrespect, mocking, or superiority
3. Defensiveness — deflecting responsibility and counter-attacking
4. Stonewalling — withdrawing and refusing to engage

These are real, they're measurable, and their presence is genuinely predictive. Contempt alone is the single strongest predictor of divorce.

But here's the piece most people miss: the masters of relationships also display the Four Horsemen. Not as often, perhaps, but they're there. These couples aren't conflict-free angels floating through life in perfect harmony. They're human beings who get tired, stressed, and reactive — just like everyone else.

The difference? They repair. Fast. And effectively.

What Repair Actually Looks Like in the Brain

A repair attempt is any statement or action — verbal or nonverbal — that de-escalates conflict and prevents negative sentiment from spiraling. It can be as simple as:

- A touch on the arm during a tense conversation
- "I'm sorry, that came out wrong. Let me try again."
- A moment of humour that breaks the tension
- "We're getting off track. I love you. Let's start over."

What's happening neurologically during a successful repair is remarkable. The repair bid activates the partner's ventral vagal system — the social engagement circuit — which begins to downregulate the sympathetic activation (fight/flight) that conflict triggered. Heart rate slows. Cortisol begins to clear. The prefrontal cortex comes back online.

In essence, a successful repair is one nervous system offering safety to another. It's co-regulation in action. And it is the single most important relationship skill you will ever develop.

Why Most Couples Fail at Repair

If repair is so important, why don't more couples do it? Three reasons:

1. They don't recognise repair attempts. Gottman found that in distressed couples, 86% of repair attempts go unrecognised by the receiving partner. A partner might say "Can we take a break?" — which is a repair bid — and the other hears it as avoidance. The bid is there. The recognition isn't.

2. They're too dysregulated to offer repair. You can't repair from a state of flooding. If both partners are in sympathetic activation — hearts racing, stress hormones surging — neither has the neurological resources to initiate repair. This is why the twenty-minute physiological cool-down is essential. You cannot do the sophisticated social-cognitive work of repair from a dysregulated nervous system.

3. They carry negative sentiment override. This is Gottman's term for the perceptual filter that develops in distressed relationships where even neutral or positive bids are interpreted negatively. Your partner brings you coffee. In a healthy relationship, you think "That's nice." In negative sentiment override, you think "What do they want?" or "They're trying to avoid the conversation we need to have."

The 5:1 Ratio

Gottman's most famous finding is the "magic ratio" — that stable, happy relationships maintain a ratio of at least five positive interactions for every one negative interaction during conflict. Not in daily life — during conflict.

This doesn't mean you need to be artificially positive during arguments. It means that within the natural flow of a disagreement, healthy couples sprinkle in moments of connection, humour, affection, and validation that keep the overall emotional tone from going toxic.

"I hear you, and I disagree, but I see why you feel that way."
"This is hard, but I'm glad we're talking about it."
"You make a fair point about the finances. I still think we need to discuss the timeline."

Each of these is a positive interaction within a conflict context. And they are the connective tissue that allows a relationship to absorb the inevitable negativity of disagreement without sustaining structural damage.

What Gottman Doesn't Talk About (But I Will)

Gottman's research is foundational. I reference it constantly. But there are layers he doesn't address that my work in hypnotherapy and NLP fills in.

Specifically: why some people cannot repair even when they know how.

The answer, in my experience, is subconscious programming. If your implicit memory contains the encoding "admitting fault means I'm defective" — usually installed by a critical or shaming caregiver — then the act of repair (which requires vulnerability) feels existentially threatening. Your conscious mind knows you should apologise. Your subconscious blocks it because, in its calculus, the vulnerability of apology is more dangerous than the conflict itself.

In hypnotherapy, we can access and rework these encodings. We can help the nervous system learn that vulnerability is not weakness, that repair is not submission, that saying "I'm sorry, I got it wrong" does not annihilate the self.

In NLP, we use timeline work to locate the original decision point — the moment the subconscious installed the belief — and update it with the resources of the adult self. "Little me decided that being wrong was dangerous. Adult me knows that being wrong is human, and that repair is the bravest thing I can do in my relationship."

The Practice

This week, practise one repair attempt per conflict. Just one. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to resolve everything. It just has to communicate: "I am choosing this relationship over my need to be right."

And if your partner offers a repair bid — even a clumsy, imperfect one — receive it. Let it land. Let it do its neurological work of calming your nervous system and restoring the connection between you.

Repair is not about being the bigger person. It's about being the braver one. And in my experience, the couples who make it are the ones who get brave on a regular basis.