Many couples turn to each other in pre-marital bliss and vow to love each other until the end of time. They finish each other’s meals, sentences, and laundry. And yet just a few years later they can barely make it through a conversation without arguing. What might have been an amusing issue earlier in the relationship has become a battle for supremacy in the household and maybe even a battle on the therapist’s couch. What happened?

Tolstoy once wrote, “All happy families are happy alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way.” But while the experience of unhappiness that Tolstoy referenced is felt and described by each couple in their own way, there are several universal reasons that couples report for seeking marital counseling.

Doss, Simpson, and Christensen (2004) reported that “emotional affection,” “communication” and “divorce/separation concerns” were the top three reasons reported by couples seeking therapy. When asked separately, husbands and wives prioritized those reasons differently- highlighting the importance of assessing individual perspective. Whisman, Dixon and Johnson (1997) asked therapist’s perspectives of the reasoning behind couples’ entrance into therapy, and found similar results: lack of loving feelings, power struggles, communication, affairs, and unrealistic expectations occurred in their top five.

Despite the common reasons why couples seek therapy, how couples fight might be more important that what they fight about, or even how often. Bradbury and Karney (2004) state that couples poor problem-solving skills alone don’t necessarily dictate poor marital relationships. Those that can infuse their arguments with humor, genuine enthusiasm, and expressions of warm and affectionate feelings will stave off overall declines in marital satisfaction regardless of whether they have low or high problem-solving skills. However, without the positive affect, couples with lower problem-solving skills will experience sharp declines in marital satisfaction. In other words, positive affect during conflict may protect any couple from the lasting effects of negative interactions and future battles on the therapist’s couch.

Further Reading:

Bradbury, T.N., & Karney, B. (2004). Understanding and altering the longitudinal course of marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 862-879.

Doss, B.D., Simpson, L.E., & Christenson, A. (2004). Why do couples seek marital therapy? Professional psychology, research and practice, 35, 608-614.Whisman, M., A., Dixon, A., E., and Johnson, B. (1997). Therapists’ perspectives of couple problems and treatment issues in couple therapy. Journal of family psychology, 11, 361-366.