Category: Relationships

An important sign that a relationship is in trouble.

One of the most toxic relationship patterns involves ‘the silent treatment’.

Shutting down communication is part of a pattern psychologists call the ‘demand-withdraw’ pattern.

The demand-withdraw pattern frequently happens in relationships when they are distressed.

It involves one partner — often the woman — making demands, while the man withdraws.

Sometimes it happens in the reverse direction but, either way, it is very damaging for a relationship and can be difficult to escape from.

Professor Paul Schrodt, the study’s first author, said:

“It’s the most common pattern of conflict in marriage or any committed, established romantic relationship.

And it does tremendous damage.”

The conclusions come from an analysis of 74 different studies carried out with over 14,000 participants.

The results revealed that couples displaying the demand-withdraw pattern had the lowest relationship satisfaction.

They also reported poorer communication, lower intimacy, higher aggression and anxiety.

Professor Schrodt said:

“Partners get locked in this pattern, largely because they each see the other as the cause.

Both partners see the other as the problem.”

Husbands tend to do the withdrawing, Professor Schrodt explained:

“One of the most important things we found is that even though wife-demand/husband-withdraw occurs more frequently, it’s not more or less damaging.

It’s a real, serious sign of distress in the relationship.”

Escaping demand-withdraw

The best way of dealing with this pattern is by accepting and validating the other person’s identity.

This is done through improving communication.

Men should listen and understand their partner, while women should reduce their negativity and hostility (or, the reverse if the woman is withdrawing).

It is better to bring up issues as neutrally as possible so they can be heard.

When both partners can communicate problems and feel they understand each other, their marital satisfaction is higher.

The study was published in the journal Communication Monographs (Schrodt et al., 2014).

Couples who use this word rate their marriages as higher quality.

“Thanks” is the one word that will save your your relationship.

Couples who express gratitude to each other rate their marriages as higher quality, a study has found.

Expressing gratitude also reduces the likelihood of divorce, the researchers found.

Gratitude is particularly powerful at overcoming repetitive arguments.

The key is feeling appreciated by your spouse and acknowledging when they have done something nice for you.

Dr Ted Futris, study co-author, said:

“We found that feeling appreciated and believing that your spouse values you directly influences how you feel about your marriage, how committed you are to it, and your belief that it will last.”

For the study, 468 couples were asked about the quality of their marriages and how they expressed their gratitude to each other.

The results consistently showed the power of gratitude, said Dr Allen Barton, the study’s first author:

“It goes to show the power of ‘thank you’.

Even if a couple is experiencing distress and difficulty in other areas, gratitude in the relationship can help promote positive marital outcomes.”

One particularly dangerous negative pattern is called ‘demand/withdraw’, Dr Barton explains:

“Demand/withdraw communication occurs when one partner tends to demand, nag or criticize, while the other responds by withdrawing or avoiding the confrontation.

Although wife demand/husband withdraw interactions appear more commonly in couples, in the current study we found financial distress was associated with lower marital outcomes through its effects on increasing the total amount of both partners’ demand/withdraw interactions.”

Gratitude was effective at breaking through this negative pattern, said Dr Futris:

“Importantly, we found that when couples are engaging in a negative conflict pattern like demand/withdrawal, expressions of gratitude and appreciation can counteract or buffer the negative effects of this type of interaction on marital stability.”

Dr Futris continued:

“All couples have disagreements and argue.

And, when couples are stressed, they are likely to have more arguments.

What distinguishes the marriages that last from those that don’t is not how often they argue, but how they argue and how they treat each other on a daily basis.”

The study was published in the journal Personal Relationships (Barton et al., 2015).

Modern societies are often highly mobile, with people moving around for work, school or just to start afresh.

People in modern societies tend to move home frequently, which is damaging to the nature of their friendships.

Research finds that moving regularly is linked to thinking that friendships and close social ties are more disposable.

Unfortunately, without strong social ties to friends and family it is harder to feel safe and secure.

Similarly, moving around a lot is also linked to the same attitude of disposability towards objects.

Dr Omri Gillath, one of the book’s authors, said:

“We found a correlation between the way you look at objects and perceive your relationships.

If you move around a lot, you develop attitudes of disposability toward objects, furniture, books, devices — basically whatever merchandise you have at home, your car even.”

Modern societies are often highly mobile, with people moving around for work, school or just to start afresh.

The research found that the more people have moved around the country, the more they tend to have a disposable view of both objects and close social ties.

Dr Gillath said:

“This isn’t a new idea of the United States as a mobile country — for many people here, moving up means moving around.

If you’re willing to move for school or a job, you have a higher chance of being successful.

But we’re saying it also makes things superficial and disposable.

It might be fine to have disposable diapers but not disposable friendships.

If you know you’re moving and develop the idea that everything can be replaced, you won’t develop same strong and deep ties.

We’re suggesting this is a broad phenomenon where we all tend to look at relationships to co-workers, friends and social network members as replaceable.

Even in romantic relationships, when I ask my students what would they do when things get difficult, most of them say they would move on rather than try to work things out, or God forbid, turn to a counselor.”

These kinds of attitudes can be psychologically unhealthy, Gillath thinks:

“Research suggests only deeper high-quality ties provide us with the kind of support we need like love, understanding and respect.

You need these very close ties to feel safe and secure and function properly.

If social ties are seen as disposable, you’re less likely to get what you need from your network, which can negatively affect your mental and physical health as well as your longevity.”

The friendship crisis

There’s little doubt that having friends is tremendously good for people.

Those who invest in their friendships experience greater psychological and physical health, particularly among the elderly (Lu et al., 2021).

Despite this, people find it hard to make friends.

Dr William Chopik, an expert on relationships, said:

“In today’s world there’s a general feeling that we’re in a ‘friendship crisis’ in which people are lonely and want friends but struggle to make them.

We show here that they’re beneficial for nearly everyone, everywhere.

But why are they so hard to form and keep?”

It is likely that one of the many answers is that friends are viewed as disposable.

The book is called “Adult Attachment: A Concise Introduction to Theory and Research” (Gillath et al., 2016).

Around one in five people have this attachment style.

Anxiously attached people tend to bring up old arguments over and over again, research finds.

Recalling old grudges or misdeeds adds fire to new arguments and kills the relationship.

Psychologists call this ‘kitchen sinking’.

Kitchen sinking is throwing everything into arguments, but the kitchen sink.

Anxiously attached people do this partly because they worry that their partners do not care for them.

High levels of attachment anxiety are linked to a fear of abandonment.

People who are anxiously attached are extremely ‘needy’.

Around one in five people have an anxious attachment style.

The conclusions come from a series of studies involving many hundreds of people.

In one, 201 people in romantic relationships were asked about their attachment anxiety and past conflicts.

The results showed that anxiously attached people were more likely to remember old conflicts.

Ms Kassandra Cortes, the study’s first author, explained:

“When memories feel closer to the present, those memories are construed as more relevant to the present and more representative of the relationship.

If one bad memory feels recent, a person will also be more likely to remember other past slights, and attach more importance to them.”

Naturally, remembering past conflicts makes people act more destructively in the moment, with disastrous consequences for the relationship.

However, the study also showed that sweeping conflicts under the carpet was not effective either.

Instead, conflicts need to be resolved as they occur, Ms Cortes said:

“It may be useful for people to resolve an issue with their partner when it occurs, rather than pretending to forgive their partner or just letting it go when they are clearly upset.

This way, the issue may be less likely to resurface in the future.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Cortes & Wilson, 2016).

Researchers looked at the effect of negative events such as losing a job, the death of a loved one or financial problems.

Negativity is one of the most powerful relationship killers.

Reducing negativity is the key to getting through tough points in a relationships, new research finds.

Small negative gestures in a relationship are much more powerful than positive actions, psychologists have found.

Professor Keith Sanford, who led the study, said:

“When people face stressful life events, they are especially sensitive to negative behavior in their relationships, such as when a partner seems to be argumentative, overly emotional, withdrawn or fails to do something that was expected.

In contrast, they’re less sensitive to positive behavior — such as giving each other comfort.”

Even relatively small amounts of negative behaviour can add up, Professor Sanford said:

“Because people are especially sensitive to negative relationship behavior, a moderate dose may be sufficient to produce a nearly maximum effect on increasing life stress.

After negative behavior reaches a certain saturation point, it appears that stress is only minimally affected by further increases in the dose of relationship problems.”

The researchers studied 325 couples who were married or living with a partner.

They looked at the effect of negative events such as losing a job, the death of a loved one or financial problems.

A second study of 154 people looked at couples where serious illness was causing stress.

All wrote about the positive and negative behaviours their partners had performed.

Both studies found negative behaviours affected the relationship more strongly than positive, however medical issues were linked to lower levels of negative behaviour.

The study’s authors write:

“It is possible that couples facing stressful medical situations are less likely to blame each other.

When people face stressful life events, it’s common to experience both positive and negative behavior in their relationships.

When the goal is to increase feelings of well-being and lessen stress, it may be more important to decrease negative behavior than to increase positive actions.”

The study was published in the Journal of Family Psychology (Rivers & Sandford, 2018).