6 Marriage and Intimate Partnerships

Student Resources: Guiding Questions, Chapter Outline, and Website & Article Resources

Guiding Questions

After reading the chapter, the student should be able to answer the following questions:

  • What does it mean for a marriage to be successful?
  • How are successful marriages maintained over time?
  • How do successful marriages negotiate intimacy?
  • How do successful marriages negotiate conflict?
  • How do successful couples think about or perceive their marriages?
  • Is there one formula to a successful marriage? What are common couple types?
  • What are similarities and differences in homosexual and heterosexual intimate relationships?
  • What makes for success in a long-term marriage?

Chapter Outline

  1. What is Marital Success?
  2. Measuring Marital Success
  3. Understanding Marital Success: Models
  4. The Relationship Bank Account Model
  5. Understanding Marital Success: Relationship Maintenance Principles
  6. Behaviors and Relationship Maintenance
  7. Behaviors and Intimacy
  8. Self-expressive Behaviors: Self-disclosure and Affection
  9. Partner Responsiveness: Turning Toward, Decoding, and Offering Support
  10. Independent Behaviors: Joint Activities, Rituals, and Networks
  11. Behaviors and Conflict
  12. The Active Listening Model vs. Gottman’sApproach
  13. Managing Negative Affect in Conflict
  14. Solvable and Perpetual Conflicts
  15. Relationship Repair
  16. Perception and Relationship Maintenance
  17. The Debate: Perceptual Inaccuracy vs. Accuracy
  18. The Benefits of Perceptual Inaccuracy
  19. The Limits to Perceptual Inaccuracy
  20. Revealing Perceptions: Oral Histories of Marriage
  21. Sacrifice and Forgiveness
  22. Couple Types
  23. Gottman’s Couple Types
  24. Fitzpatrick’s Couple Types
  25. Gay and Lesbian Couples
  26. Relationship Quality
  27. Relationship Processes
  28. Long-term Married Couples
  29. Conclusion

Website and Article Resources

The Gottman Institute

Box 6.1. Mars and Venus: An Exaggeration of Gender Differences?

Marriage scholars worry that some of the ideas perpetuated by the media and self-help books about how to make marriage work actually have a detrimental rather than beneficial effect on people’s lives. Zimmerman, Haddock, and McGeorge (2001) persuasively argue that one such highly controversial book is John Gray’s (1992) Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
The 1992 Mars and Venus book was on the New York Times bestseller list for 339 weeks, and it outsold all other hard-cover books published in the US in the 1990s. This first book inspired (and continues to inspire) a series of other John Gray books, audiotapes, videotapes, and a board game, not to mention widespread media interest on shows such as Oprah. Zimmerman et al. respond, “Unfortunately, for a book with such immense influence, much of the material is potentially detrimental to its readers and to their intimate relationships” (p. 55). Why then do people like the book? The book is flashy. The information is relayed with humor. And, the gender stereotypes portrayed by the book play up exaggerations of gender differences that readers are already familiar with from media or other cultural myths.
What do Zimmerman et al. point to as the myths in the Mars and Venus philosophy? Their five major criticisms center around what they view as Gray’s extreme exaggeration of gender differences related to the way men and women communicate and act in intimate relationships.
1. Stereotypical descriptions of women and men: Women are portrayed as emotionally unstable, illogical, inefficient, overwhelmed with negative emotions and problems, and desperate for conversation and emotional connection. Men are portrayed as emotionally inept, insensitive, lazy, helpless, and have fragile egos that are insulted by advice from women. Men are also described as logical and independent, and they have good problem-solving skills and the ability to control most emotions, except anger. Men are portrayed to be better suited for the public sphere, and women for the private sphere. Zimmerman et al. argue that the idea that men and women are instinctually different in these ways is not supported by research. Many perceived gender differences are usually situational, not instinctual, and can be explained by socialization, power differentials, and social inequities rather than instinct.
2. Traditional division of labor: The Mars and Venus philosophy assumes that women are mostly responsible for housework and childcare, even if they are employed. Men are allowed time to resort to their “caves” after a hard day’s work, and women are not to interrupt them. Men should also be praised for the occasional things they do around the house, while women are just expected to pick up the slack at home without acknowledgement of help.
3. Responsibility for change and relationship quality rests on female partners: The Mars and Venus philosophy assumes that women are mostly responsible for achieving and maintaining relational success. Toward this end, women are the ones who need to accommodate their communication style and expectations to match men’s “natural” style. Women should never try to change or improve men. In times when men need to listen to women, Gray suggests that it is possible for men to fake listening.
4. Priority of male partner’s needs: The Mars and Venus philosophy suggests that a man’s need to withdraw to his “cave” overrides a woman’s need to talk or obtain help with house and childcare tasks. Further, women should not give advice to men, because it may hurt their feelings.
5. Threats of male anger and dire consequences: The Mars and Venus philosophy suggests that if men have to listen to women too much, men will become frustrated. In particular, offering advice may make men angry. Finally, women need to accommodate men’s needs for either intimacy or space to withdraw to their “cave.” Without either, men may become angry or forget that they love their wives.
Even though Gray (1992) popularized the idea that husbands and wives are very different, scientific research on communication and relationships shows that men and women probably have more similarities than differences. Rather than metaphorically describing men and women as inhabitantsof different planets,Dindia (see Wood Dindia, 1998) provides a more accurate metaphor by stating “men are from North Dakota and women are from South Dakota.”

© Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2011