Studies show that each couple’s back story is particularly revelatory about the present state of their relationship. One of the earliest studies of the value of a couple’s “how-we-met” story was published in 1992. John Gottman and his colleagues at the University of Washington took oral histories from fifty-two couples, and their stories were then coded and deconstructed. The couples, who had been married for an average of five years, also took part in laboratory-based discussions in front of cameras and strapped to body monitoring devices. Based on all the evidence the researchers had collected, they already had a pretty clear idea about which couples were happy and those who were headed for divorce.
Three years later, the researchers checked in with the couples again. The researchers had been virtually perfect in their assessments. The how-we-met story had predicted, with 94 percent accuracy, which couples would break up and who would stay together.
“How We Met” Might Predict Divorce
Posted June 14th 2010 at 8:33 am by admin
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