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And although she's not crazy about spending a lot of time with their relatives, she has pursued a friendship with Nathaniel's mother and sisters because family matters so much to him. If all of this sounds humdrum and unromantic, it's anything but. Through small but important ways Olivia and Nathaniel are maintaining the friendship that is the foundation of their love. As a result they have a marriage that is far more passionate than do couples who punctuate their lives together with romantic vacations and lavish anniversary gifts but have fallen out of touch in their daily lives. Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse. Because Nathaniel and Olivia have kept their friendship strong despite the inevitable disagreements and irritations of married life, they are experiencing what is known technically as "positive sentiment override." This means that their positive thoughts about each other and their marriage are so pervasive that they tend to supersede their negative feelings. It takes a much more significant conflict for them to lose their equilibrium as a couple than it would otherwise. Their positivity causes them to feel optimistic about each other and their 21 marriage, to assume positive things about their lives together, and to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Here's a simple example. Olivia and Nathaniel are getting ready to host a dinner party. Nathaniel calls, "Where are the napkins?" and Olivia yells back edgily, "They're in the cupboard!" Because their marriage is founded on a firm friendship, most likely he'll shrug off her tone of voice and focus instead on the information Olivia has given him--that the napkins are in the cupboard. He attributes her anger to some fleeting problem that has nothing to do with him-like she can't get the cork out of the wine bottle. However, if their marriage were troubled, he would be more likely to sulk or yell back, "Never mind, you get them!" One way of looking at this positive override is similar to the "set point" approach to weight loss. According to this popular theory, the body has a "set" weight that it tries to maintain. Thanks to homeostasis, no matter how much or how little you diet, your body has a strong tendency to hover at that weight. Only by resetting your body's metabolism (say, by exercising regularly) can dieting really help you lose pounds for good. In a marriage, positivity and negativity operate similarly. Once your marriage gets "set" at a certain degree of positivity it will take far more negativity to harm your relationship than if your "set point" were lower. And if your relationship becomes overwhelmingly negative, it will be more difficult to repair it. Most marriages start off with such a high, positive set point that it's hard for either partner to imagine their relationship derailing. But far too often this blissful state doesn't last. Over time anger, irritation, and resentment can build to the point that the friendship becomes more and more of an abstraction. The couple may pay lip service to it, but it is no longer their daily reality. Eventually they end up in "negative sentiment override." Everything gets interpreted more and more negatively. Words said in a neutral tone of voice are taken personally. The wife says, "You're not supposed to run the microwave without any food in it." The husband sees this as an attack, so he says something like, "Don't tell me what to do. I'm the one who read the manual!" Another battle begins. 22 Once you reach this point, getting back to the fundamental bond that united you in the first place can seem as difficult as back pedaling while white water rafting. But my Seven Principles will show you how to strengthen your friendship even if you feel awash in negativity. As you learn about these principles, you will come to have a deeper understanding of the role of friendship in any marriage, and you will develop the skills to retain or revive your own. A happy couple's secret weapon Rediscovering or reinvigorating friendship doesn't prevent couples from arguing. Instead, it gives them a secret weapon that prevents quarrels from getting out of hand. For example, here's what happens when Olivia and Nathaniel argue. As they plan to move from the city to the suburbs, tensions between them are high. Although they see eye to eye on which house to buy and how to decorate it, they are locking horns over buying a new car. Olivia thinks they should join the suburban masses and get a minivan. To Nathaniel nothing could be drearier--he wants a Jeep. The more they talk about it, the higher the decibel level gets. If you were a fly on the wall of their bedroom, you would have serious doubts about their future together. Then all of a sudden, Olivia puts her hands on her hips and, in perfect imitation of their four-year-old son, sticks out her tongue. Since Nathaniel knows that she's about to do this, he sticks out his tongue first. Then they both start laughing. As always, this silly contest defuses the tension between them. In our research we actually have a technical name for what Olivia and Nathaniel did. Probably unwittingly, they used a repair attempt.