Express fondness and admiration specifically

Name what you genuinely respect and appreciate about your partner — out loud and specifically.

Why it works

Gottman identifies a "fondness and admiration system" as foundational to relationship health: couples who see each other as good people with genuine strengths have a positive interpretive frame that buffers against conflict. When fondness erodes, neutral events get read as negative (negative sentiment override). Expressing admiration re-activates that system — but only if it’s genuine and specific. Generic praise ("you’re great") carries no information and is easily dismissed.

How to do it

1. Once a day, name a specific quality you observed: "I noticed how patient you were with them — that’s something I really admire."
2. Distinguish character affirmations ("you’re generous") from event praise ("thanks for doing that").
3. Write a list of five things you genuinely respect about your partner and read it before a difficult conversation.
4. Notice when you have a positive thought about your partner and say it rather than keep it.

Evidence

Fondness and admiration levels were among Gottman’s predictors distinguishing stable from at-risk couples. Separately, self-affirmation research shows that affirming someone’s positive qualities reduces defensiveness in difficult conversations. Self-affirmation theory formalizes why this works: affirming a valued part of the self restores a sense of integrity, lowering the defensive threat response that otherwise distorts how partners hear each other. (observational)

Correlational observation; causality is inferred. Affirmation research supports the mechanism generally, but cross-partner admiration as a specific intervention has not been RCT-tested in isolation.

Sources

• Gottman, J. M. (1994). What Predicts Divorce? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 183–242.

Common mistake

Saving admiration for milestones (anniversaries, birthdays) rather than weaving it into ordinary days — the ratio is built from the unremarkable, repeated moments.