“Love is a battlefield,” “love hurts,” “love and other bruises”: Popular songs are replete with references to the pain that may be associated with romantic love. This chapter begins by outlining the particular importance of hurt feelings in couple relationships. It then addresses issues concerning the nature of hurtful events between intimate partners, the consequences of these events for victims and relationships, and the differing perceptions of victims and perpetrators. The final section presents avenues for further research and implications for practice.

WHY STUDY HURT IN COUPLE RELATIONSHIPS?

Researchers and lay people alike agree that personal relationships are crucial to physical and psychological well-being (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Of particular importance in this regard are couple (“romantic”) relationships. These relationships are fundamental to the structure of society and play a unique role in meeting individuals' needs for comfort, companionship, support, and security (Argyle, 1986; Weiss, 1991).

Although terms such as “comfort” and “support” imply positive affect, romantic partners' unique role as a source and target of strong emotion is a double-edged sword – as many song titles suggest, “love” often entails “hurt.” The early stages of couple relationships involve considerable relational uncertainty, as partners know little about each other's hopes, intentions, and weaknesses. At the same time, they may experience intense physical attraction and the related features of physiological arousal, together with concerns about the extent to which these feelings are reciprocated (Hazan & Zeifman, 1999).

A great deal of publicity has been given to the fact that more adults in western societies are remaining single than in the past, and that rates of cohabitation are continuing to rise. In fact, some writers have gone so far as to extrapolate from these recent trends, and to conclude that marriage is becoming an unpopular and outdated institution. Nevertheless, studies show that most young people still see marriage and children as an important part of their future, and still view marriage as playing a crucial role in meeting their needs for companionship and emotional security.

Consistent with this viewpoint, Waite and Gallagher (2000) present empirical support for the proposition that there are several major advantages to marriage. First, married men and women tend to enjoy better mental and physical health than the unmarried. Second, married men and women are likely to have more assets and income than the unmarried, with marriage even being described as a “wealth-enhancing institution” (Hao, 1996). Third, married people have more and better sex than the unmarried. Fourth, children of married parents also enjoy a number of advantages, including better physical and mental health, and higher levels of education and career success.

The study of marriage has advanced significantly over the last two decades, with new theories and methodologies coming to the fore. In this book, we have assembled some of the most innovative and creative work in this area, and the studies represent a broad sample of the latest research. The contributions shed new light on the characteristics of couples' day-to-day interactions, together with their attempts to negotiate major problems and transitions.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

The studies of marriage presented in this book come from a range of theoretical perspectives. This theoretical underpinning is a major strength, allowing researchers and clinicians to develop and test specific predictions about the nature of interaction processes and their effects on marital outcomes.

Attachment Theory

Attachment theory provides a guiding framework for the research by Simpson and his colleagues, and is also discussed in a number of other chapters. This theory highlights the importance of the bond between marital partners and the implications of earlier relationship experiences for the success of their couple relationships. This focus on intimate relationships as attachment relationships comes from the work of Hazan and Shaver (1987), who explored the relevance of attachment history and attachment security to adult romantic love. According to this perspective, attachment behavior is a normal part of romantic involvements, and these relationships play a central role in meeting partners' needs for comfort and security.

Power is a critical concept in marital relationships, relevant to issues such as decision making, task allocation, and conflict resolution. Although some marriages are relatively equal in terms of power (Schwartz 1995), other marriages can be ongoing struggles for power and dominance. Power can be expressed in a variety of ways and many arguments in marriage are really about who has the power to exert influence and make decisions. Power can also be expressed in more indirect ways such as refusing to discuss an issue or engaging in manipulative behavior. Withdrawing from conflict, in particular, may stem from a desire to exert control by maintaining the status quo.

Although the demand/withdraw pattern of conflict interaction has recently come to prominence in the work of Christensen and his colleagues, it actually has a long history. For example, Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967 discussed a pattern of marital interaction involving a conflict-avoidant person (usually the male), and his partner who is frustrated by the avoidance and demands that the problem be confronted. Consistent with this focus in the therapy literature, Eldridge and Christensen present evidence that the demand/withdraw pattern is associated with relationship dissatisfaction, although the direction of causality is still not fully understood.

As Christensen and Eldridge discuss, a number of explanations for the demand/withdraw pattern have been proposed. These explanations focus on gender differences in the experience and expression of emotion, individual differences in personality and in desires for intimacy, discrepancies in power and status favoring men, and the specific structure of the conflict topic (that is, which partner is seeking change).

Although there has been a long history of researchers focusing on conflict in marital relationships, the area of study known as the “dark side of relationships” has been a more recent development. This area tends to focus on a number of relatively neglected behaviors and emotions, such as disappointment, rejection, neglect, betrayal, and infidelity. The dynamics associated with these kinds of relationship events are likely to be very complex; different kinds of responses from one partner may have very different effects on the emotions experienced by the other partner, and on the future of the relationship.

We all enter relationships with expectations about how partners should treat us, and about how we should benefit from being in the relationship. These expectations and standards guide our evaluations of our relationships. In all relationships, however, there are occasions when these standards are not met. How we respond to such occasions will inevitably have an impact on our satisfaction with our relationships.

Vangelisti and Alexander present an inductive analysis of responses to disappointment in marriage. This analysis highlights the wide variety of possible responses to unmet standards, including such diverse coping strategies as anger, self-disparagement, getting even, ignoring the event, trying to revitalize the relationship, believing the partner will change, and seeking intervention from a third party. The authors describe how these strategies differ in terms of five important dimensions: expression versus suppression of distress, focusing on the self versus the partner, recognition of the unmet standard versus rationalization, relationship versus network as the locus for action, and constructive versus destructive outcomes.

One feature of the study of marital relationships over the past 20 years has been a focus, not just on couple behaviors, but on the cognitive processes that may drive those behaviors. A wide range of cognitive processes have been studied including appraisals, attributions, beliefs, standards, expectations, rules, perceptions of intention, and subjective interpretations of ongoing interaction. (Some of these cognitive processes are discussed further in the section on coping with disappointment, criticism, and betrayal.) These cognitive processes can be even more powerful than observed behaviors in discriminating between satisfied and dissatisfied couples. The chapters in this section illustrate something of this diversity of cognitive processes and their impact on marital relationships.

Although attributions have been frequently studied by marital researchers, a novel aspect of Manusov's work is its exploration of couples' attributions for their partner's nonverbal behavior, and the effect of these attributions on their own nonverbal behavior. As she notes, one of the intriguing aspects of nonverbal communication is its ability to be interpreted in a myriad of ways. Spouses' interpretations of their partner's nonverbal communication are likely to be affected by many factors including their level of relationship satisfaction. An inno-vative feature of Manusov's work is the recruitment of one member of each couple to act as a confederate who is instructed to use particular kinds of nonverbal behavior in structured interactions with their spouse. This approach ensures that clear examples of positive and neg-ative behavior are displayed by couples, irrespective of marital satis-faction.

Recent decades have seen marked changes in attitudes toward gender roles and in women's involvement in the labor force. Given these changes, it might seem reasonable to assume that families establish much more equitable patterns of domestic work today than they did in the past. Evidence suggests, however, that this is not the case. With the transition to parenthood, in particular, couples often move toward a traditional division of labor, in which women do the bulk of the child care and other household tasks; further, partners do not necessarily see this situation as “unfair.” In fact, perceptions of unfairness are only weakly linked to patterns of task performance, and seem to be shaped by many aspects of individual and couple functioning.

Although marital interaction has been extensively studied, much of the research has focused on conflict processes and their implications for relationship functioning. This focus was often adopted because negative processes were believed to be particularly powerful discriminators between satisfied and dissatisfied couples. More recently, however, researchers have begun to recognize the importance of positive interaction processes in maintaining relationship satisfaction.

As Roberts and Greenberg point out, the period leading up to the decision to marry is typically one of great joy, intimacy, and positivity. They contrast two radically different perspectives on the development of marital dysfunction. On the one hand, the negative affect model emphasizes the destructive role of conflict and negativity in marital breakdown. On the other hand, the intimacy process model, while recognizing the importance of responses to conflict, focuses on the role of positive interactions in maintaining relationship satisfaction. According to this latter perspective, positive exchanges serve to maintain a climate of trust, respect, and acceptance; in the absence of such a climate, relationship stress and conflict are likely to escalate.

As these authors note, there are many approaches to the observational assessment of conflict interaction. Although positive behavior can be observed in these interactions, discussion of conflict topics is unlikely to provide prototypical examples of positive couple behavior. New approaches, which are more likely to elicit positive interaction, need to be developed.

We have learned a great deal about marital interaction from the extensive research carried out over the last few decades. However, the findings have not always been readily available to the general population. The results of research studies can only help couple relationships to the extent that they find their way into the popular literature, or are applied in the therapeutic context. The chapters in this section emphasize ways in which couple relationships can be strengthened through appropriate intervention.

Story, Rothman, and Bradbury explore the risk factors for marital dysfunction, using a longitudinal study of the first four years of marriage. Their main focus is on the effects of parental divorce and negativity in the family of origin; that is, on the intergenerational transmission of relationship difficulties. Given that these family of origin factors are not, of themselves, amenable to change, an important issue associated with intergenerational transmission concerns the identification of variables that may mediate the effects of negative family-of-origin experiences on marital functioning. Interpersonal processes are particularly relevant in this context, because these processes can be modified by teaching couples appropriate relationship skills.

Story and her colleagues recruited couples in the first six months of marriage, in order to monitor their progress across the critical early years. They also assessed the couples using multiple measures of marital behavior, including problem solving, physical and psychological aggression, and negative affect (coded from a problem solving interaction).