Couples enter into marriage full of hope. They may be aware that problems will inevitably arise, but they usually feel confident they’ll be able to keep their relationships on track.

There’s reason to be optimistic. Decades of research into the dynamics of relationships have finally established solid principles for helping marriages work – as opposed to the largely speculative, opinion-based approaches of traditional marriage counseling.

Four signs of a problem marriage
At the Family Research Laboratory in the University of Washington Department of Psychology, Dr. John Gottman and colleagues have identified four types of interaction that indicate a problem relationship. They include criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and most serious of all, stonewalling.

By learning to spot and control these patterns early on, you can significantly improve your chances of having a happy relationship.

Criticism, for example, often begins with a complaint (“We don’t go out as much as we used to”) which sharpens into an accusation (“You never take me out anymore”) and finally becomes a personal attack (“You only care about yourself”).

The downward spiral can be triggered for many reasons, including a lack of confident, clear assertiveness.

Mutual respect is the key
Dr. Gottman’s research, conducted with long-term support from the National Institute of Mental Health, has also found that there are six key areas of conflict, and that a remarkable 60% of all perceived problems are in fact not solveable at all.

An enlightened marriage counselor can help couples realize when this is the case and develop the mutual respect required to make marriage work. “It was a big relief,” one patient remarked, “to learn that we don’t have to completely change ourselves to stay married.”

In addition, a marriage counselor who is also a trained psychotherapist can identify serious emotional problems that should never, ever be compromised with or adjusted to.

Sooner is better than later
The benefits of marriage are well-established. They include higher income, more satisfaction, and a healthier, longer life – unmarried women, for example, have a 50% higher mortality rate than married ones.

If a couple want to enjoy those benefits, it makes sense to see a marriage counselor before the stonewalling impass is reached, where one partner accuses while the other sits there without saying a word.

It’s hard to heal a marriage when either spouse refuses to communicate.