Using questionnaires and observation, Fitzpatrick[1] and Gottman identified three types of stable[2] marriage. The marital relationships these three types produce are: 1) “traditional”[3] couples, 2) independent[4] couples and 3) “avoidant”[5] couples.
Traditional couples:
They accept conventional gender roles and lifestyles, and resolve conflict in an indirect, so-called low-key[6] way. In short, traditional couples:
- Accept traditional gender roles.
- Put family goals before individual goals.
- Keep a regular, predictable daily routine.
- Do not each keep private space or belongings at home.
- Are moderate in expressing positive and negative feelings.
- Avoid getting caught up in minor conflicts.
- Take up important conflicts between them with the aim of resolving them.
- When starting to resolve a conflict, each first tries to listen to the other’s point of view, and then states and defends their own position.
- Try to persuade the other only after listening properly to their view.
Independent couples:
Striving for equal roles, they resolve conflict in an active, direct, so-called fiery[7] way.
- They accept androgynous, egalitarian roles.
- Family goals come after individual goals.
- They have no particular regular, predictable daily routine.
- Even at home, each keeps private space or belongings that the other may not use without permission.
- They are not especially moderate in expressing positive and negative feelings.
- They prefer to keep wrangling over the issues between them.
- From the very start of a disagreement, without trying to listen to each other, they set out to prove their own view and persuade the other.
- They have many positive and negative feelings towards each other.
Avoidant couples:
They accept conventional roles but lead parallel lives, and, unlike traditional couples, try on principle to avoid attending to points of conflict in their relationship.
- They accept traditional gender roles.
- They try to avoid any kind of conflict.
- Their conflict-resolution skills are very weak. In the few cases where they acknowledge a conflict, they simply state their own views, without any attempt to persuade each other or reach a compromise.
- They play down their disagreements compared with the values and common ground they share.
Gottman’s study also identified two types of unstable couple, described as “hostile”[8] couples and couples who are “completely disengaged”[9] from each other.
Hostile couples:
The first group notice conflict in their relationship and do fight, but they do not seek to solve the problem; mostly they tear each other down.
- They take up their conflicts but make no attempt to resolve them.
- Constant blame, mind-reading and defensiveness are the main features of their interactions.
- They express a great deal of negative emotion and very little positive emotion.
- Their usual pattern of interaction is attack and withdraw.
- They express very high levels of negative emotion towards each other, and very little positive emotion.
Completely disengaged couples:
To prevent confrontation, the second group avoid everyday contact with each other on principle, and put up with each other in a kind of complete silence and indifference.
- They avoid conflict, and their conflict-resolution skills are also very weak.
- Brief episodes of blame, mind-reading and defensiveness appear in their interactions.
- They express very little negative emotion, and positive emotion is almost absent.
- Their conflict pattern is avoid/avoid.
Gottman found that in the three types of stable couple, the ratio of positive to negative verbal exchanges when resolving conflict was 5 to 1, whereas for unstable marriages it was reported to be roughly 1 to 1. Gottman’s and Fitzpatrick’s work especially stresses the fact that stable, lasting patterns of marriage are very varied. Their findings underline the importance of couples taking up their conflicts (with the aim of resolving them) rather than staying silent and ignoring them. Attending to each other’s negative points does damage only when it exceeds one for every five positive responses. In fact, moderate negativity of the kind described above may even help build and deepen mutual social understanding, and so play a useful part in balancing the need for intimacy with the need to exercise power, helping to keep the relationship attractive in the long run.
[1] Fitzpatrick
[2] stable
[3] traditional
[4] androgynous
[5] avoidant
[6] low key
[7] fiery approach
[8] conflictual
[9] Disengaged
Sources: Gottman, J. M. (1993). The roles of conflict engagement, escalation, and avoidance in marital interaction: a longitudinal view of five types of couples. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 6–15; and Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1988). Between Husbands and Wives: Communication in Marriage. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
As one of the centres licensed for specialist premarital counselling and family strengthening, Moeen Counselling Centre plans to run specialist premarital counselling courses and family therapist training courses for students and professionals in counselling and psychology, taught by Dr Bahman Bahmani and other leading teachers in Iran. To hear about course dates and requirements, join our network.
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