HP I am reading the gottmann books now. The things that impressed me were all of the nagative comments going back and forth. some from me were "I don't like" statements and from Bb " you always something bad".

I think the 5 good to 1 negative is just a starting place and if a person's R with their spouse is really bad maybe the good statements need to be 25 to 1 bad/negative statement. Difficult to do sometimes but as you say you have to zip it if you want things to change.

In business there is an idea that it takes 25 good customer interactions to overcome 1 bad transaction. That is why I said the 5 good to 1 bad is a minimum place to start.

Lou