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I petted her, and my hands didn't stink or feel oily. When the subject of whether the dog smells comes up, for example, Bill and Sue banter back and forth happily, both with a half smile on their lips. She complains, too, but there are also moments when they simply forget that they are supposed to be arguing. He complains a little bit—but about the dog, not about Susan. "I'm just not a dog person" is how Bill starts things off, in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice.

There are no scenes, no breakdowns, no epiphanies. The videotape of Bill and Sue's discussion seems, at least at first, to be a random sample of a very ordinary kind of conversation that couples have all the time. For fifteen minutes, they discussed what they ought to do about it. They lived in a small apartment and had just gotten a very large puppy. For fifteen minutes, they were left alone with the cameras rolling, with instructions to discuss any topic from their marriage that had become a point of contention. Two video cameras, one aimed at each person, recorded everything they said and did. Under their chairs, a "jiggle-o-meter" on the platform measured how much each of them moved around. They both had electrodes and sensors clipped to their fingers and ears, which measured things like their heart rate, how much they were sweating, and the temperature of their skin. They were led into a small room on the second floor of the nondescript two-story building that housed Gottman's operations, and they sat down about five feet apart on two office chairs mounted on raised platforms. His wife, Susan, had a sharp, deadpan wit. The husband, whom I'll call Bill, had an endearingly playful manner. Later, some of the people who worked in the lab would say they were the kind of couple that is easy to like—intelligent and attractive and funny in a droll, ironic kind of way—and that much is immediately obvious from the videotape Gottman made of their visit. They were in their twenties, blond and blue-eyed with stylishly tousled haircuts and funky glasses. Some years ago, a young couple came to the University of Washington to visit the laboratory of a psychologist named John Gottman.

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