Study finds happy couples fight differently than others

Conflict in any type of relationship is inevitable: Whether you're part of a long-term relationship or not, the same problems — children, money, intimacy, relatives, etc. — tend to crop up.

But new research published in the August edition of Family Process found one particular factor that separates happy couples from the rest: how they fight and what they choose to fight about.

In the study, four psychology professors — Amy Rauer, Christine M. Proulx, Allen Sabey and Brenda L. Volling — observed two samples of couples who described themselves as "happy." 57 of the couples were in their mid to late 30s and had been married an average of nine years, while the remaining 64 couples were in their early 70s and had been married around 42 years.

The researchers asked the couples rank their issues, from most serious to least. Issues relating to household, health, communication and money were consistently labeled as some of the more serious problems, while jealousy, religion and family were on the other side of the spectrum.

The researchers then had the couples discuss their pressing problems and observed how they spoke about it to one another.

What they discovered was that couples who focused on issues that had clear solutions (e.g., problems with household workload is solved with the proposal to redistribute the domestic labor) seemed to understand that if they both worked together toward an answer, they both would walk away from the conversation feeling secure and content.

This is not to say that more complicated topics are entirely off-limits. It was the couple's intentional selection of what to argue about that made the foundation of their marriage stronger, which paves the way for future discussions about more difficult problems.

Diving into a complicated problem with no solution prepared can only lead to the deterioration of the relationship.

Professor Rauer sums it up perfectly: "Being able to successfully differentiate between issues that need to be resolved versus those that can be laid aside for now may be one of the keys to a long-lasting, happy relationship.”

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