New Northwestern research has found a way to improve marital satisfaction in just 21 minutes.
Generally, marital satisfaction declines over time in a marriage. But a study led by psychology Prof. Eli Finkel shows a simple writing intervention could keep couples satisfied.
“I don’t want it to sound like magic, but you can get pretty impressive results with minimal intervention,” Finkel said in a University news release.
Finkel’s study involved 120 couples over two years. Half of the couples participated in three seven-minute writing exercises administered online. The other half did not. According to the release, all couples reported on “relationship satisfaction, love, intimacy, trust, passion and commitment” every four months for two years. In addition, they provided “a fact-based summary” of the most significant argument they had in the preceding months.
The couples who were assigned the reappraisal intervention had to explain the most recent argument or disagreement from a third-party perspective, according to the release.
Although both groups showed signs of marital decline over the first year, as prior research suggested, the couples who participated in the reappraisal intervention experienced no decline in the second year. Couples in both groups fought with the same frequency, but the release said intervention couples “were less distressed.”
“Not only did this effect emerge for marital satisfaction, it also emerged for other relationship processes — like passion and sexual desire — that are especially vulnerable to the ravages of time,” Finkel said in the release. “And this isn’t a dating sample. These effects emerged whether people were married for one month, 50 years or anywhere in between.”
Finkel said in the release that this development was particularly important because marital dissatisfaction results in many health problems. He cited data in the release that showed those who experienced high marital satisfaction after a coronary artery bypass were three times more likely to be alive 15 years later.
“Marriage tends to be healthy for people, but the quality of the marriage is much more important than its mere existence,” Finkel said in the release. “Having a high-quality marriage is one of the strongest predictors of happiness and health. From that perspective, participating in a seven-minute writing exercise three times a year has to be one of the best investments married people can make.”
— Cat Zakrzewski
