Psychologist Dr. John Gottman is renowned for his research on relationships, and his ability to predict divorce with 94% accuracy by watching and coding a couple interact for only a few minutes.
Gottman was a mathematician before he became a Clinical Psychologist and his latest book Principia Amoris, provides equations which explain the nuances of successful relationships in mathematical terms.
Gottman’s extensive research has found that successful intimate relationships have a balance between positive and negative feelings and actions between partners, and the magic ratio for happy couples is 5 to 1. This means that for every one negative feeling or interaction between partners, there must be five positive feelings or interactions.
What this ratio tells us is that couples who experience conflict in their interactions can stabilize their relationship by buffering negative interactions with positive ones in order to attain that magic 5:1 ratio.