The importance of repair

“Even in relationships that are working well and in families that are working well, there’s a lot of mistakes that people make, and people sort of stumble through life together. And one of the most important things that psychologists have discovered about parenting and also about couples’ relationships is that the most important thing is repair, because everybody messes up in relationships. So... communication is not really about being perfect. It’s really about noticing that you’re not perfect—that you’re really messing up and trying to make it better... In very good relationships, people don’t communicate perfectly. They don’t say things the right way. They’re not really always in a good mood. They’re not really always emotionally available. But they can talk about it and they fix it.” (Source: presentation by Dr. John Gottman)