Thursday, August 29, 2002

A story published today by the Wall Street Journal reports that the medical community historically has had little advice for preventing divorce, which ends 50 percent of U.S. marriages. But now a wealth of new research has helped scientists discern what qualities lead to a lasting marriage or a divorce.

Research shows even as small a gesture as eye-rolling after a spouse's comment can be a strong predictor for divorce, while marriages with traditional gender roles often are highly successful.

University of Washington psychology professor John Gottman, a leading divorce-prediction researcher , has videotaped thousands of couples and codes positive and negative facial expressions, body language and comments.

Dr. Gottman and his colleagues have calculated that strong marriages have at least a five-to-one ratio of positive to negative interactions. When the ratio starts to drop, the marriage is at high risk for divorce.

Four negative qualities are the strongest predictors for divorce: contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling. Couples also need to be aware of subtle negatives such as facial expressions.

Some research focuses on the timing of divorce. While half of all divorces occur in the first seven years of marriage, a study published this spring in Family Process claimed that another risky time for divorce is in midlife. The study followed 79 Bloomington, Ind., couples that had been married an average of five years. Four years after the research commenced, 9 percent had divorced. By the end of the 14-year study, 22 couples, or 28 percent, had divorced.

The couples that divorced early were volatile and negative. But the marriages that ended later were on the opposite end of the spectrum, marked by suppressed emotions described as the type of couple that sits together in a restaurant but doesn't talk. Often those couples aren't aware they are in a high-risk marriage because the early years are so tolerable.

Another researcher, retired University of Virginia professor E. Mavis Hetherington, studied 1,400 families over three decades, breaking them down into types. Certain types, she found, are predisposed to divorce, such as the "pursuer-distancer" marriage, in which the wife typically presses to solve problems, but the husband dismisses her concerns. Another type, the "cohesive/individuated" marriage is considered low-risk, because the man and wife view themselves as a team.

Many researchers believe couples can "inoculate" a marriage against divorce by seeking counseling before and during a marriage, long before a major crisis hits.

Finally, it has become clear that many marital disagreements simply can't be solved. In one study, researchers interviewed the same couples four years apart. They found that 70 percent were still talking and fighting about the same problems in exactly the same way as they were four years earlier. The result has been a push for "acceptance" therapy, encouraging partners to accept the enduring foibles of their spouses rather than trying to change them.