What happy couples do differently: the science of staying close after kids
What predicts divorce: the fights, or the fading warmth?
Most people think couples split because they fight too much. Two teams followed couples for 13 and 14 years, and the warning sign they found was often much quieter.
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Weeks go by in your flat with no fight at all. In the evening, you each sit with a phone. Nobody shouts. Nobody reaches out either.
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In 1981, 168 couples who had just married in the United States agreed to be studied for 13 years. By the end, about one in three of them had divorced.
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The team tested an idea many people hold: couples split because their fights get worse and worse. The data gave that idea little support. Fights that grew worse in the first two years did not mark the couples who later divorced.
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What marked them was quieter. Their love and affection faded. They felt less sure that the other one cared about their needs. Their feelings grew mixed. The researchers called it disillusionment.
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Another lab, which followed couples for 14 years, saw two roads to divorce. Couples whose fights were full of harshness tended to split earlier, about seven years after the wedding on average. For the couples who split later, harsh fights were not the sign. What they lacked was warmth, in their fights and in their talk about the day.
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So a quiet evening is not always a safe one. The fights still count, though: on the early road, they came first. Next, we sit down in a lab where couples were filmed while they argued.
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Quick check
A friend says: "My partner and I never fight, so we are fine." What would the 13-year study say?
Show the answer
Not fighting is not proof. In the couples who later split, the warning sign was love and affection fading, so the real question is whether the warmth is still there.
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Go further
Three names to look up.