A Theory of Marital Dissolution and Stability John Mordechai Gottman Department of Psychology University of Washington ABSTRACT Research is presented on the prospective longitudinal prediction of marital dissolution. First, a cascade toward marital dissolution is described. Second, the cascade is predicted with variables from a balance theory of marriage. Third, there are process and perception (the distance and isolation cascades) cascades related to the cascade toward dissolution. The importance of "flooding" is discussed, as well as a mechanism through which negative perceptions (which are 2 dimensional) become global and stable and through which the entire history of the marriage is recast negatively. The role of physiology is outlined. A theory is presented in which a "core triad of balance" is formulated in terms of 3 weakly related thermostats (connected by catastrophe theory) and related to the distance and isolation cascade. Implications for a minimal marital therapy are discussed. Correspondence may be addressed to John Mordechai Gottman, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, NI—25, Seattle, Washington, 98195. Received: November 4, 1992 Revised: December 14, 1992 Accepted: December 18, 1992 Today separation and divorce are common phenomena. Separation appears to be a trustworthy road to divorce rather than to reconciliation. When couples separate, about 75% of these separations will end in divorce ( Bloom, Hodges, Caldwell, Systra, & Cedrone, 1977 ). Current estimates put the divorce rate in the United States somewhere between 50% (as of 1970; Cherlin, 1981 ) and a startling 67% (as of 1989; Martin & Bumpass, 1989 ). The divorce rate for second marriages tends to be about 10% higher than the rate for first marriages ( Glick, 1984 ). Researchers now know that separation and divorce have strong negative consequences for the mental and physical health of both spouses. These negative effects include an increased risk for psychopathology, an increased number of automobile accidents–some resulting in fatalities–and an increased incidence of physical illness, suicide, violence, homicide, and mortality from diseases (for a review, see Bloom, Asher, & White, 1978 ). Marital disruption may not merely be related to these negative life events, it may actually be among the most powerful predictors of them ( Holmes & Rahe, 1967 ). There is even evidence from one large sample 9-year epidemiological prospective study on the predictors of dying or staying alive that the stability of a marriage is the best predictor of these two phenomena, even when controlling for factors such as initial health and health habits ( Berkman & Syme, 1979 ; Berkman & Breslow, 1983 ). The Berkman and Syme study suggests that the health-buffering effects of marriage are all granted to men, consistent with suggestions made by Bernard (1982) . However, recent research ( Gottman & Levenson, 1992 ; Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1987 ; Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1988 ) suggests that the opposite is true, namely, that an ailing marriage or marital dissolution most strongly affects the physiological functioning of women. Studies are not consistent in this regard (e.g., cf. Levenson & Gottman, 1985 ), but, in general, the evidence does not support Bernard's contention. To resolve this inconsistency of costs and buffers offered by marriage as a Journal of Family Psychology © 1993 by the American Psychological Association June 1993 Vol. 7, No. 1, 57-75 For personal use only--not for distribution. Page 1 of 1911/27/2000http://spider.apa.org/ftdocs/fam/1993/june/fam7157.htmlfunction of gender, Gottman (in press) found that the illness of women is directly affected by marital distress, whereas for men it is mediated through loneliness. He speculated that this result is probably due to the relatively meager social support systems of men as compared with those of women; these systems for most men are restricted to their wives. It is probably the case that an ailing marriage negatively affects the physiology of both partners. Also, there is now convincing evidence to suggest that marital distress, conflict, and disruption are associated with a wide range of deleterious effects on children, including depression, withdrawal, poor social competence, health problems, poor academic performance, and a variety of conduct-related difficulties ( P. A. Cowan & Cowan, 1987 , 1990 , 1992 ; Easterbrooks, 1987 ; Emery, 1982 , 1988 ; Emery & O'Leary, 1982 ; Forehand, Brody, Long, Slotkin, & Fauber, 1986 ; Gottman & Katz, 1989 ; Hetherington, 1988 ; Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992 ; Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1978 , 1982 ; Howes & Markman, 1989 ; Katz & Gottman, 1991a , 1991b ; Peterson & Zill, 1986 ; Porter & O'Leary, 1980 ; Rutter, 1971 ; Shaw & Emery, 1987 ; Whitehead, 1979 ). There is evidence from two U.S. national probability samples that adults who experienced a divorce as children are under considerably more stress than those who did not ( Kulka & Weingarten, 1979 ; Glenn & Kramer, 1985 ). These adults report less satisfaction with family and friends, greater anxiety, that bad things more frequently happen to them, and that they find it more difficult to cope with life's stresses in general. There is also evidence for a reasonably reliable phenomenon of the intergenerational transmission of divorce, but the effect is not large (e.g., see Pope & Mueller, 1979 , p. 109), and this relationship is not found in every study. For example, in the Kelly and Conley (1987) 35-year prospective study these relationships were not statistically significant (although the trend was there). Despite these negative consequences of marital dissolution, researchers still do not understand how marriages may be patterned in some way that spells their eventual destruction. In decade review papers, both White (1990) and Price-Bonham and Balswick (1980) noted that little is known about the marital processes that may be predictive of divorce. The research agenda is relatively clear. What needs to be known is whether there are specific trajectories toward marital dissolution or marital stability that are systematically related to the qualities of a marriage. Furthermore, this knowledge must come from prospective longitudinal studies rather than from retrospective accounts of failed marriages (e.g., Ponzetti & Cate, 1988 ; Vaughn, 1990 ), as reconstructions of the past are notoriously unreliable. Critical in this research agenda are two
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