Predicting Divorce
By Dr Scott M Stanley & Dr Howard J Markman
Invalidation and Prediction
Most theories of marriage suggest that a high level of validating interactions will lead to sustained marital satisfaction. However, we observed no differences between distressed and nondistressed couples on the degree of validation in their premarital interactions. Surprisingly to many who work with couples, levels of premarital invalidation, not validation, strongly differentiated couples who did well in the future
from those who did not do well.
Couples who would become distressed or divorced (at some point in time
over the 12 years in our research) had higher levels of invalidation in
their premarital interaction than couples who remained nondistressed.
We highlight such points in our preventive efforts because we think
couples need to know that certain negative patterns do far more harm to
their relationship than positive patterns can reasonably counteract. In
layman's terms, "one zinger erases many positive acts of kindness"
(Notarius & Markman, 1993, p. 18).
Thus, our analyses indicate that couples with dysfunctional premarital
interaction patterns, especially a tendency to approach discussions of
relationship issues with invalidation, negative affect, and withdrawal,
are at risk for marital distress and divorce. These studies on
premarital couples parallel findings in research that highlight
differences between happily married couples and distressed marriages.
Taken together, a variety of studies strongly suggest that the negatives
of how couples interact are much more salient and more predictive than
the positives in predicting the future prospects of the relationship
(Gottman, 1993; Markman & Hahlweg, 1993).
In our view, these results highlight the need for partners to learn
together how to adequately regulate negative affect arising from
relationship conflict. Thus, although the current version of PREP
addresses many aspects of healthy marriages, it emphasizes key
affect-management skills that enable difficult issues to be handled in a
constructive manner (Markman et al., 1994).
