The Problem of Marital Drift and the Goal of Reconciliation Marital drift can occur in any marriage relationship, regardless of culture, status, religious beliefs and practices, or lifestyle. Various factors can contribute to marital drift. Individuals and couples face many demands upon their time, energy, and attention. In their research, King and DeLongis (2014) report that the marriage relationship involves a variety complex interactions, all of which are influenced by a variety of stress and coping processes. These interactions (or lack thereof), constraints, and stressors can cause a drift to occur, separating the couple from each other emotionally, sexually, and physically. If not tended to, a marital drift can ultimately end in divorce. …show more content…
Driscoll and Driscoll (2012) explain that stonewalling occurs out of an individual’s own selfishness, citing that the world around couples actually encourages the individual to care for their self and neglect the marriage relationship, pursuing independence and convenience, leading to isolation, and ultimately “using people rather than loving them.” (p. 27). Stonewalling leads to separate lives, rather than shared lives. The couple may live parallel, but they are not united as one. When facing drift, a couple may have separate social circles, separate spiritual pursuits, and separate finances. Couples in this state may even cease in sharing a bed, even sleeping in separate bedrooms. (Driscoll and Driscoll, …show more content…
Clinton and Sibcy (2006) point to a recurring pattern within a marriage suffering from disconnect, and that is the pattern of pursuing and withdrawing. When a couple is in a cycle of hurt, one spouse will react to the disconnect or drift by pursuing the other partner. The pursued partner reacts by withdrawing. This pattern continues the hurt, causes the cyclical pattern of one partner pursuing and the other partner withdrawing. Neither spouse can connect with the other and each struggle with understanding where the other is coming from. As the drift progresses in the marriage, Balswick and Balswick (2014) note that “over a period of time, the wife’s verbal expression of love will diminish. Many a wife begins marriage with expansive declarations of love for her husband, but without reciprocal expression, she will express her feelings less frequently.” (p.
Along with these feelings of rejection, the spouse who wanted to stay married also often feels betrayed. Their partner vowed to love and honor them forever, and to stand by them in sickness and in health, and to devote their lives to them. With divorce, all of that is taken away. Those promises of love, fidelity, and companionship are broken, by the choice of the spouse pursuing the divorce. In contrast, when d...
Unbalanced marriages are rigid and chaotic. A rigid relationship is when one family member is in change and is highly controlling (Olsen, 2000). There are limited negotiations with most of the family’s decision are decided by the leader of the family (Olsen, 2000).
In the book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (1999) John M. Gottman provides insight on the seven fundamental tools to construct positive relationships. Through long years of research, Gottman studied married couples and noted degenerative behaviors that hindered the formation and attainment of a long and healthy marriage. Gottman research focused on several key behavioral predictors of divorce, which he calls the “The Four Horsemen”; Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.
According to the National Survey of Families and Households, 86 percent of married couples who stick it out through the hard times found that five years later, they had a better marriage than ever, that they are happier in their life than they have ever been, they feel better and they are grateful that they did not make a poor decision (www.nsfa.com exact reference needed). Despite this good news, couples are still divorcing and families are being torn apart.
According to recent statistics, there are more divorces now than ever before. At the rate things are going, the divorce rate may soon surpass the marriage rate. There are many reasons for such a high divorce rate, but one of the main ones is that people do not realize what they are getting themselves into when they marry. Couples do not realize that marriage is a job that must be worked at continuously in order for it to go well. Because many couples marry for the wrong reasons, a breakdown in communication results, which leads to a couple's growing apart. This process, all too often, ends in divorce.
The best cement of a couple’s relationship is comprehension, and conversation. “Sex, Lies and Conversation” by Deborah Tannin points out that the lack of conversation is one of the major reasons why people divorce. Distance is created quickly if a husband or a wife does not share his or her feelings, does not tell his or her partner what is happening, and keep the feelings; however, a successful relationship constantly keeps the lines of communication open.
Most studies in marital conflict pertain to three particular dimensions of communication. The first dimension is affect which refers to messages that express positive or negative feelings about another person, such as supportiveness, hostility, confirmation, coercion, sarcasm, or global positiveness or negativeness (e.g., Gottman, 1979 and Sillars and Wilmot, 1994). The second dimension to characterize conflict behaviors is whether they are constructive or destructive for the parties’ relationship. Research in the United States indicates that exiting from the relationship and neglecting the partner are destructive problem-solving responses and are more powerfully predictive of couple distress than giving voice to problems and being passive loyal (e.g., Rusbult, Johnson, & Morrow, 1986). The third dimension to characterize conflict management is engagement versus avoidance (e.g., Hocker and Wilmot, 1991 and Sillars and Wilmot, 1994). Engagement is reflected in direct, overt verbal confrontation of conflict issues, while conflict avoidance is reflected in withdrawal and aversion to dealing directly with conflict issues (Canary, Cupach, & Messman, 1995) and includes circumscribed, irrelevant, or ambiguous communication. Since the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of culture on marital conflict strategies and marital satisfaction, the discussion will be limited to the third dimension of marital conflict, engagement–avoidance, along with Rahim's styles of conflict.
No one expects to divorce when they get married but nearly half of all marriages will end in divorce or separation. Divorce can be costly, with court fees and attorneys. Dr. Doherty, noted marriage scholar and therapist has determined a list of risk factors that are attributed to marital problems and divorce. The first three: Young age, less education and less income are coincidently other topics brushed upon in this paper. Impulsive decisions made by younger people to marry leads to children which leads to financial instability. Once a couple has children, they are unlikely to further their education because of lack of time. Divorce also has a negative effect on
Marriage is a commitment that seems to be getting harder to keep. The social standards placed on an individual by society and influenced by the media inevitably lead some to consider divorce as a “quick-fix” option. “Have it your way” has become a motto in the United States. It has become a country without any consideration of the psychological effects of marriage and divorce. The overwhelmingly high divorce rate is caused by a lack of moral beliefs and marital expectations.
In addition to the investment model, Rusbult (1991) proposed the concept of accommodation process to help explain conflict resolution in relationships. Accommodation processes refer to the tendency of an individual to respond to her or his partner’s destructive actions with a constructive action. Rusbult (1991) described four distinct accommodation processes: exit, voice, neglect, and loyalty behaviors. The four behaviors can be classified as either constructive or destructive and as passive or active. Exit behaviors actively aim to end the relationship by performing actions that signify intent to leave the relationship (e.g., storming out of a room during an argument). Neglect behaviors refer to passive avoidance of the partner or issues regarding the partner, such as an individual not acknowledging her or his partner’s feelings as a result of anger. Both types of behaviors damage the relationship, and are therefore classified as destructive. Contrastingly, the constructive behaviors of voice and loyalty work to benefit the retention of the relationship. Voice behaviors encompass active, positive communication in response to destructive behavior from the partner (e.g., consoling an angered partner). Loyalty is categorized as a passive behavior in which the individual remains hopeful that the condition of her or his relationship will improve. Although exhibiting constructive behavior may benefit the relationship, lack of destructive behavior appears to be more consequential than the presence of constructive behaviors (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991).
In LDRs, relational dialectics contribute to the future or demise of an existing or developing relationship. To some, the benefit of living apart from their partner allows the individual to establish autonomy within the relationship while allowing a connection to their partner through communication. However, additional effort may be required to guarantee assurances to the partner who desires more security and closeness. Moreover, couples in LDRs have the freedom to attain privacy while also providing open communication when required by the situation. Therefore, it is pertinent to identify these trends in relational dialectics through four studies examining LDRs.
What is a family? A family is two or more people consider themselves to be blood related, or related by marriage, or adoption. Our families are who we love. We as families look different in so many ways. A family’s caregiving unit might have a couple, a mother, a father, and children. A family could also be a single parent and child, a group of siblings, a small or large group of friends. A family defines itself in many different ways. Families are the foundation of how our society and how it works. It is how we come into the world and nurtured and given the tools that we need to go out into our world. We are both capable and healthy or not our families influence our lives either in a good way or a bad way. While families
During the 19th century (early 1920s), the divorce rates increased by every 1000 marriages, 6.6 of them ended in divorce. Until the end of WWII, divorce rates double every five years mainly due to the expectation of what a marriage is and the separation between a soldier and his wife. Separation between a newly married couple can cause distrust due to the distance. Most newly married wives expected the life of happiness and excitement, however, they did not expect to lose their husband to the war nor did they expect the abusive behavior, also known as PTSD, from soldiers coming home from the war, whether it ended or the soldier was honorably discharged due to an injury. In American, divorce rate skyrocketed mainly caused by many reasons, such as boredom, lying, money, overbearing personality, and the ignorance of sex. Even in today’s society, divorce can be cause by all of these reasons. However, after WWI, divorce rates increase to over seventeen percent. Although a married woman was never taught about sex until she wedded, the married woman being ignorance about sex can cause a divorce, blaming the married woman to be at fault. Another reason is seen mostly in wealthy society where a wife gets bored and files for divorce. Boredom is one of the biggest cause for marital failure. Although the married wives file for divorce due to boredom, she will less than likely to be ridiculed by
Relationships are all about give and take, and to maintain that balance people must be willing to do the work. Today dissolution of marriage is being used as the easy way out when couples no longer agree. When couples are incapable of maintaining a happy marriage, a divorce can be agreed upon. Divorce is more common nowadays, making the divorce rate a continual increase. About 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce (Kazdin). In America, there is one divorce every 13 seconds. That’s 6,646 divorces per day, and 46,523 divorce per week (Irvin). The three main causes of divorce is the lack of communication, financial difficulties, and infidelity.
One of the most important issues facing society is to increase the divorce rate in the U.A.E. The reasons vary greatly affect the UAE community discussion of this issue is necessary and you must find and apply solutions to reduce the divorce rate. This essay will discuss and explain about the causes, effects and the solution of the high rate of divorce.