Emotional Interaction and Marital Stability

Dr. John Gottman in his research on marriages has found that emotional interaction in marriage can predict divorce or marital stability. Gottman tested couples discussing both positive and negative conversations and found that "in the conflict discussion, the predictors that led to divorce were husband interest, husband contempt/disgust, wife interest, and wife sadness." This suggests that interest in our spouse is very important. Also, when husbands communicate with contempt or disgust and women communicate with sadness these couples have more problems.