The Effects of Venting

We've all had those days, where it just seems like everything has gone wrong and the Universe is conspiring against our happiness. Or when a friend, family member or significant other has suddenly decided to be the dumbest person on the planet. In these moments, sometimes we just feel the need to let off some steam - talk to someone about what's happening and make sure we're not crazy, that these things are really happening to us! Often times we even say "I just need to vent," implying that we'll just say our piece, the negativity will escape our bodies, and we'll no longer be the pressure cooker that we were previously.

In the social sciences, depending on the manner an individual goes about the venting process, there are several names for it - none of them good. The first of these is the principle of rumination. The term rumination is derived from a cow's digestive process. They have what's called a ruminating stomach - meaning once they swallow something, they spit it back up into their mouth, chew it more, and then swallow it again. But that's not all! They keep doing it, until it's sufficiently broken down and passed through their four stomachs. Seriously.....gross. But it carries a key principle with it regarding venting. When people vent it's ok if they let off the steam, and find a solution to the problem, but continuing to regurgitate the matter only to chew on it and then swallow again... well, you can see how detrimental that can be. What we find is that people who ruminate on something that is displeasing in their life or their relationship actually have higher levels of depression, and are less likely to find solutions to their problems. 

Sometimes this is even taken to the level of bringing external individuals into the problem. This begins as co-rumination in simply discussing the event with the same person over and over again. Eventually, if it takes place long enough it can be called triangulation - bringing a third person into the matters surrounding the relationship. This becomes especially harmful in romantic relationships. Studies have shown that co-rumination and triangulation can lead to something called a coalition. This is when that third person becomes an ally and "takes sides" in an argument. 

While it may seem pretty intuitive as to why this is so harmful to relationships, the science shows us that when one relationship becomes stronger, another one must naturally become weaker. In the case of marital coalitions (one spouse gets another family member, child, or friend to be "on their side") the partnership between the co-ruminators becomes stronger, and the marital relationship becomes weakened. 

Now, some of this may sound extreme. However, the end result of venting doesn't always have to be marital dissolution and divorce. It can simply be a weakening of your relationship with your spouse or significant other. In maintaining strong relationships, it's important to resolve problems between one another, or with appropriate individuals such as mental health professionals or ecclesiastical leaders. 

Marriage = Game Over

We've talked about the changes in marriage trends as people are getting married less often, and later on in life. In the research that's been done many individuals source reasons such as fear of divorce, desire to be financially stable, and fear of losing "freedom."

Freedom can be defined by anything from boys/girls weekends, to having awesome sex, to sadness and despair in its wake. People are legitimately believing this - you may be believing this. But I ask you then - if it's terrible, why are people still getting married? Better yet, why are they staying married?

The benefits of marriage are a widely popular study in the field of family sciences, and that's because as the culture, definitions and parameters surrounding marriage change, it's important that we reevaluate to make sure they're still the same, and so far so good. Now, before jumping in to the benefits, let's talk about means and norms. These things are going to be true for most couples, there are some who these don't hold true for, for a multitude of reasons. There always exceptions to rules.

Linda J. Waite from the University of Chicago is a sociologist who studies families. Her emphasis is strongly in the field of couples and marriage and she's pretty well known in the field for her extensive work. In several studies she has found that married people are not only happier, on average, than single, divorced, or widowed individuals, but healthier.

In the case of men the level of risk-taking behaviors (drug use, binge drinking, etc.) drops dramatically. Because individuals have someone to support them in healthy living, the health benefits increase significantly. Married individuals also have twice the sex of single people, and statistically similar amounts to cohabiting individuals. And most importantly, while men and women both experience up-swings in happiness once they're married, the difference for men is much greater - than even those who are living with their partner.

Both genders experience these benefits, but by and large men experience a much greater jump in all categories than women. There's much speculation about why this could be, but it's just that - speculation. So does marriage equal game over? To me, it looks like it's game on.

Is communication the root of all evil?

Normally I'm a sworn skeptic to anything proclaiming to be relationship advice on Huffington Post, but this time I was pleasantly surprised! I came across this article and I thought "This guy knows what's up!" Turns out he's a clinical psychologist who specializes in marriage and family relationships.

He discusses how the inability to communicate is often blamed as one of the primary causes of relationship break down. The point that he makes is that often times, there are things looming around that cause the bad communication in the first place, and he's totally right, but there's a piece of research done by Dr. John Gottman that I think is really important to note here called accepting influence.

Dr. Flanagan touches on it a little bit in his article, but doesn't totally tie it together. Basically couples inevitably have complaints within relationships, and when concerns are brought up, the manner in which partners respond says a lot about the relationship. This is where Flanagan's principles of shame, ego, power and empathy come in. There are three ways partners can respond to requests - they can turn away from their partner, toward them, or against them. The only one of these responses that is related to positive outcomes is turning toward a partner - seeking to understand their point of view and either changing, or working out a compromise.

This is especially important for husbands. Research shows that women tend to bring a larger amount of complaints to the table, and the more often they are met with understanding and empathy, the more likely a relationship is to survive. As Gottman explains it, responding any other way is "simply winning the battle, but losing the war."

Families are the ultimate institution to teach us selflessness and sacrifice, and as the research shows us over and over again, sacrificing our own ego and wants in a relationship to respond selflessly to a spouse are what opens up communication, and allows resolution and healing to take place in times of conflict. So yes, as Flanagan explains in his article, marital communication " like the kid who fights back on the playground...He didn't create the problem; he was reacting to the problem. But he's the one who gets caught." Next time communication seems to be in a bit of a rut, try running through another checklist:

• Ego
• Power
• Shame
• Empathy

Are we doomed by divorce rates?

So I've seen this article and it's sister articles popping up on my friends' newsfeeds about the divorce rate lies that society has been feeding us. It chaps me a little bit because while some of her points are valid, the only element of credibility her claim has is that she received research training at Harvard. Other than that none of her proclaimed numbers hold any scholarly validated backing, and that scares me a little bit.

But in reality, we do see a decline in the divorce rate in America over the last twenty years. Divorces reached their 50% peak in the 1980's as a result of No-fault Divorce, but then began to decline steadily after that, with a decline in the last decade. Take a look at the dotted green line on our little graph here. You'll see that while it's still pretty high, it's definitely on its way down.

National Bureau of Economic Research 2007 Report

There are several speculations for why this decline is happening, but the honest truth is that most researchers aren't sure. One of the possibilities is the later age of marriage trend happening currently in the US. We do see that marriages that happen at age 27 and greater tend to be more stable, which leads to a lower divorce rate, but they also tend to report lower marital satisfaction.

However, regardless of what the numbers say, I think that the most important thing to remember regarding marriage and divorce is that the statistics don't determine our fate - we do. The statistics of heart attacks in America are relatively similar to the divorce statistics we're seeing, but I would venture to say that if you're the person that maintains a healthy lifestyle, you're not too worried about that. Marriage is the same. Divorce isn't something that happens to us. It is a series of choices, something that doesn't have to be an option.

In fact, research shows us that if we live by principles of commitment, love, compassion, forgiveness, and respect in our relationships, marital satisfaction skyrockets. As we choose to stay committed as couples, turn toward one another in conflict, and are willing to let things go, while hard times, annoyances, and conflict will still happen we will find deeper love and appreciation in our relationships.

Men and Women - Different Planets?

Pop Quiz: What's the best-selling self-help book of all time?

How to Win Friends and Influence People?
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People?

Nope, Covey and Carnegie couldn't even compete when it came to John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. According to CNN it's sold over 50 million copies world wide (pretty rare for a self-help book) and is considered the #1 best-selling piece of non-fiction from the 1990's. Kind of impressive. 

It would be more impressive if his claims had legitimate social science backing, but that's fine. However you get your cash money right? 

If you've never heard of it before this moment then that means you're super young, but even then you can pretty much guess the premise. You've probably even had experiences that point to the validity of his claims. We've all been to that point in a relationship when we wonder if we're dating someone who even speaks the same language as us, and we blame it on the 'ol gender differences. 

However, when we actually look at the differences between men and women, we find that the only behavioral difference that actually exists (statistically speaking) is women's exceptional ability to have and display empathy for others. In every other category - including aggression, self-disclosure, desire for emotional support, and assertiveness - the differences are minute.

As far as Gray's claim that men and women need different things from relationships, a 2006 article published by Dr. Jason Carroll outlined a relationship quality prediction model, which had a 65% prediction rate for women, and 67% for men. Statistically, that's gold. What he found was that the combination of 3 factors contributed to happy relationships for both men and women. What are they? Effective negotiation (i.e. problem solving, conflict resolution, listening), Other-centeredness (i.e. forgiveness, kindness, sacrifice) and personal security (i.e. self-worth, personality characteristics).

When these categories are broken down into their individual couple processes (forgiveness, problem solving, etc.) we find two major differences between men and women - women are more likely to claim "relationship satisfaction" in the presence of positive elements such as partner's displays of kindness and sacrifice, and men are more likely to feel satisfied in their relationship in the absence of negative. These are important differences to understand in a relationship, but Gray's claims don't even come close to expressing this notion in his book.

Finally, in an article published by Reis and Carothers in 2012 assessed gender differences in both behavioral and psychological categories through 24 different variables including personality traits, sexual attitudes and behaviors, and measures of intimacy. They found not only found that men and women really aren't that different, but also that many of the complaints that happen between heterosexual couples are also found in gay and lesbian relationships.

So do men and women really have completely different emotional make-ups? According to repeat findings in the research, the answer is, "no." And I feel like Reis nailed it when he said, "Clearly, it's not so much sex, but human character that causes difficulties."

Finding Yourself Before Marriage

This morning one of my friends posted an article entitled "Married at 19: Worth Every 'Lost Experience,'" and of course I had to read it. The author talked about the benefits of marrying young, such as growing together with her spouse, learning sacrifice and selflessness, and having a built-in support system during the difficult developing years of her early twenties. Naturally, as comes with posting your opinion in cyber space, the onslaught of opposing viewpoints followed. One person in her late twenties mentioned the financial problems she was having and how being connected to another person would've compounded that into financial disaster. Another man expressed his distaste for the "throwback post" to the 1950's, and cited that one in two people married right out of high school will divorce. He mentioned the ability to have an education, be more financially secure and being able to "find yourself" as great benefits to post-poning marriage.

It's no secret that the average age of marriage has been steadily increasing for the last decade, and each of the reasons mentioned have been accepted as explanations of why it should continue. But are they really? Can the author of the article really be happy without experiencing the freedom of singlehood? Is it possible to beat the odds? And more importantly, are things such as greater financial security, education and life experience actually essential to a happy marriage?

In order to figure it out, we only need to ask one question which can provide us several answers - Was the early-marriage hater right? Do those married out of high school really have higher divorce rates? Rather than throw around randomly Googled statistics, let's look at a real graph from a real peer-reviewed, published article.

Heaton, T. B. (2002). Factors Contributing to Increasing Marital Stability in the United States. Journal of Family Issues

For those non-statisticians, what we're seeing on the left of this graph is an 80% chance of divorce for persons married at the age of 15 and younger - shocker, right? However, once we hit 18-20 we've dropped to about 40% - so our hater wasn't too far off. By the time we get to age 21 though, it's gone almost down to 20% and we see it on a steady decline from there. But honestly, the statistical significance of a divorce rate moving from 22% - 18% in this particular data set is pretty much nothing.

So that was only one study, no big deal right? Actually, Norval D. Glenn (kind of a sociological legend) from the University of Texas found the same exact findings in 5 different data sets from around the United States. That's the statistical equivalent of "What now suckas?!"

So hater was kind of right. But the bigger question here is: is stability the only thing you're looking for in a marriage? Because yeah, if you want a better chance of staying married, wait until at least 21, but if you want a happy marriage with great sex, you might want to start looking at the age of 20 and hope you get to where you're going before 25. Check it out.

The Glenn data sets also showed a curvilinear relationship between age of marriage and marital satisfaction. This means that as age of marriage goes up, satisfaction in marriage starts to go up until it plateaus at 20, and then takes a dive again at age 25. In a follow up study done by researchers at Brigham Young University they found that couples married after age 24 displayed lower levels of effective communication and significantly lower levels of sexual satisfaction.

Now, if you were married after 25, or are currently 25 and unmarried don't start freaking out on me, there are several factors that contribute to these trends, and unlike our hater friend, I won't tell you that statistics determine your fate. I'll just make you read another post on what you can do to not become a statistic. But I digress...

The greatest trend that we're seeing in why marriages from 22-25 have higher satisfaction is actually what was said in the Married at 19 article - couples are able to grow together. Despite having more life experience, education, greater income, etc., research is finding that this process of waiting to "finding yourself" makes the concept of you very solid. Marriage requires flexibility, sacrifice and selflessness. When young adults spend more time becoming independent, the outcome is a more difficult process of bringing two people together in a relationship.

So what is the right age for marriage? Honestly, social science will probably always refuse to answer that questions, but I'm going to side with Norval himself on this one when he says, "it would be premature to conclude that the optimal time for first marriage for most persons is ages 22-25. However, the findings do suggest that most persons have little or nothing to gain in the way of marital success by deliberately postponing marriage beyond the mid-twenties."