While a successful marriage is not an exact science, science (and common sense) suggests thinking and behaving in a positive way toward one’s partner is beneficial. However, one psychologist proposes that for some couples, negative thoughts and actions may actually be better in the long run.
For couples who experience frequent, serious problems, such negative behavior as placing blame on one’s spouse, commanding him or her to change, and being less forgiving seem to be the best way to breed a happy marriage.
Such advice seems counterintuitive, but James McNulty, a psychologist at the University of Tennessee, says what works for happy couples may not work for those with more problems.
“Happy couples do behave certain ways and think more positively, but this might not be creating their happiness necessarily, it may just reflect their happiness,” McNulty said. “Because when unhappy couples behave and think the same way, over time they actually seem to get worse.”
His recent research suggests marital therapies that encourage couples with major issues to be more critical of one another are potentially beneficial.
McNulty’s theory is based on four studies conducted over the past decade.
In the first, 82 newlywed couples were asked to report eight times over the course of four years on how satisfied they were with their marriage.
The power of low expectations
The couples had been asked at the beginning of their marriage whether they expected to grow stronger in their relationship or to experience rough patches along the way.
The results, published in 2004, showed that having positive expectations about the relationship helped only if the couples met these expectations, McNulty said. Couples with more problems did better if they had expected to encounter obstacles.
