It’s not possible to see into the future, especially when it comes to relationships and the success of marriage. However, there are some indicators that a Florida couple may be headed for a divorce down the road. Married couples who are considering divorce may have dealt with this one big predictor determined by a family study.
Results of a family study show a big predictor of divorce
The Iowa Youth and Family Project conducted a study of 451 married couples who had a child in the 7th grade. Further research was done with a sample of 370 of these same couples and their young adult children a few years later as the Iowa Midlife Transition Project.
The study looked at several areas in order to measure things like marital conflict, marital satisfaction, instability, ambivalence, and divorce. It showed a larger connection between marital ambivalence and divorce. Questions on this part of the survey contained four items on the topic of “How often does your spouse make you feel they care about you?”.
Conflict balanced with marital satisfaction
Conflict isn’t always considered to be a bad thing. In fact, it’s an important part of close relationships. Long-term romantic relationships have greater success when the partners tackle heavy discussions, even if they don’t agree all the time. It doesn’t do them any good to be pleasant all of the time and allow any negative thoughts and slights to remain a secret until it turns into a much more frustrating situation.
The key is that they don’t tend to work as hard at maintaining a happy marriage if they are ambivalent towards their spouse, meaning that they experience both love and hate towards their partner, which leads to instability and uncertainty.