Can one word illumine a marriage?
Friday, December 1, 2023.
Couples who use this word rate their marriages as higher quality. Ready? Here’s the word:
“Thanks” is the one word that will brighten your bond.
Life partners who express gratitude to one another deem their marriages to be a higher quality, according to recent research. The consistent expression of gratitude also reduces the likelihood of divorce, the same researchers revealed.
Gratitude is particularly powerful at diffusing ongoing, repetitive arguments…
The essential idea is the feeling of being appreciated by your partner, and acknowledging when they have done something nice for you.
Dr. Ted Futris, research co-author from the great University of Georgia said:
“We found that feeling appreciated and believing that your spouse values you directly influences how you feel about your marriage, how committed you are to it, and your belief that it will last.”
How the study was conducted
For the study, 468 couples were asked about the quality of their marriages and how they expressed their gratitude to each other.
The results consistently showed the power of gratitude, said prolific researcher Dr. Allen Barton, from the University of Illinois at Champain-Urbana. He’s this study’s lead author, and a researcher frequently quoted on this blog:
“It goes to show the power of ‘thank you’.
Even if a couple is experiencing distress and difficulty in other areas, gratitude in the relationship can help promote positive marital outcomes.”
One particularly dangerous negative pattern which can emerge is called ‘demand/withdraw’, Dr. Barton elaborates:
“Demand/withdraw communication occurs when one partner tends to demand, nag or criticize, while the other responds by withdrawing or avoiding the confrontation.
Although wife demand/husband withdraw interactions appear more commonly in couples, in the current study we found financial distress was associated with lower marital outcomes through its effects on increasing the total amount of both partners’ demand/withdraw interactions.”
Dr. Futris reported that the feeling of gratitude was effective at breaking through this negative pattern:
“Importantly, we found that when couples are engaging in a negative conflict pattern like demand/withdrawal, expressions of gratitude and appreciation can counteract or buffer the negative effects of this type of interaction on marital stability.”
Dr. Futris continued to explain:
“All couples have disagreements and argue. And, when couples are stressed, they are likely to have more arguments.
What distinguishes the marriages that last from those that don’t is not how often they argue, but how they argue and how they treat each other on a daily basis.”
Final Thoughts…
When we lose appreciation for our partner, we invite criticism and cruelty to share our dinner table.
In our solipsism, we tell ourselves we can do better, when the fact is, we are offering little intimate connection as it is.
Why should we be unhappy? Do we not live as Gods?
In a world that satisfies every curiosity in a nano-flash, our human capacity for gratitude has shown to be frail, and it can wither like a dead hand.
When with are estranged and withdrawn from our intimate partner, researchers keep reminding us how the scarcity of human gratitude is a cancer metastasizing upon on our souls… unless we turn toward connection, and against the vile comfort of our own vanity.
Be well, stay Kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Allan W Barton, August Ida Christine Jenkins, Qiujie Gong, Naya C Sutton, Steven RH Beach, The protective effects of perceived gratitude and expressed gratitude for relationship quality among African American couples, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 10.1177/02654075221131288, 40, 5, (1622-1644), (2022).
