Pushkin.

When we tape interviews for this show, a lot of small things can go wrong.

Plains fly overhead, trains rumble by, recording devices break, but more often than

not, the problem is usually somebody's phone going off.

I turned the phone off, but it didn't turn it off.

I did, yeah.

Uh-uh.

This isn't the kind of exchange you might have expected from relationship experts John and Julie

Schwartz-Gotman. You might have thought that Julie would just brush over John's mistake with

some loving yet sacrant comment. Oh honey, I simply adore your forgetfulness.

It fills our lives with so many surprises.

But the Gottmans are realists.

They don't like shying away from the disagreements, disputes,

and down-rate arguments that happen in every partnership.

And in their decades together as a married couple, they've had their fair share of conflicts.

Some of them were pretty fundamental.

This was like 30 years ago. It had such a big fight

there that we actually went to couple therapy. That must be so intimidating for

the poor couple of therapists when the Gottmans walk in.

Throughout their careers, and now at the Institute that bears their name,

the Gottmans have studied countless couples,

paying particular attention to the different ways

...