- Couples' attachment styles can inform which type of communication works best for them, experts say.
- They advised partners to discuss one issue at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
John Gottman, the renowned researcher and couple's therapist, has estimated that 67% of couples will divorce within 40 years of marriage. In fact, Gottman was divorced twice before meeting his third wife and business partner, Julie Gottman.
Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, the founders of Imago relationship therapy, had both divorced their partners before marrying — and they literally wrote the book on how to make a marriage work.
If even the most prolific psychologists with access to all the latest research can still fail at relationships, do the rest of us stand a chance?
Yes, they'll tell you, because a partner who's willing to do the work with you can change everything. And they're speaking from experience.
If you don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on couple's therapy, or if your partner isn't willing to go, you can still train yourself in communicating effectively, hearing your partner's needs, and managing conflict.
Here are six research-backed tools that top couple's therapists recommend to their clients.
Learn your attachment styles
In "Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love," Amir Levine explains how attachment styles — secure, anxious, or avoidant — affect relationship success.
"Avoidant partners crave independence and create distance after too much closeness," Levine said, adding that "anxious partners have a very sensitive radar for distance and react to it as danger."
These two styles often end up together, resulting in a conflict loop where neither feels that their needs are being met.
Levine encourages anxious partners to practice clearly and calmly stating their exact needs instead of reacting emotionally to a trigger.
His advice for avoidant people is to learn to be more responsive to their partners. "Small messages of availability — a quick 'thinking of you' text once a day — make a huge difference," he said. "Within seconds you can say the right thing or give a hug and make an anxious partner feel better."
Discuss one issue at a time
Too often, one person raises an issue, the other becomes defensive and raises a counter-issue, and now both are bickering and nobody remembers what the original conversation was even about.
Levine has a rule to avoid this. "Only one person gets to be upset at a time," he said. "Whoever was upset first is the person who gets their issue addressed."
The next time your partner has a complaint, keep the conversation short and focused by giving it your undivided attention.
Use structured conversation
Kathryn Ford, a couple's therapist, recommended that "when it's your turn to speak, speak only for one to two sentences, then leave a pause before your partner speaks."
"This slows the conversation way down and helps you both learn the skills of listening and emotional regulation," Ford said.
Consider using this therapist-recommended template for phrasing an issue in nonthreatening language: "When you X, I feel Y. What I need from you is Z."
Try active listening
Active listening is designed to help you really hear your partner.
"One partner holds the 'sharing' role, and the other holds the 'listening' role and listens without interruption," said Leanna Stockard, a couple's therapist with LifeStance Health.
"Once the sharing partner finishes, the listening partner checks in to make sure they understood with a comment such as, 'I'm understanding you are feeling X, is that correct?'" Stockard said.
Remember, you're not necessarily agreeing with your partner's feelings — you're simply reflecting on what they said to show that you're listening and that you care.
Don't run the stop sign
Ford said that "when you are flooded — or emotionally triggered to the point of an adrenaline rush — your brain can no longer take in and process information."
This is a stop sign for the conversation, Ford said.
"Running a stop sign risks the relationship's safety, so you both need to learn this and stop doing it," Ford added. "As soon as you start to feel 'closed' to the other person's feelings or point of view, like you're just waiting for the chance to make your point, that's a stop sign, and you call a time-out."
Pick a safety word or set a timer
If your fights tend to spiral out of hand, come up with a safety word, and "use it to indicate to your partner that you're escalating or shutting down and that you are in need of a break," Stockard said.
Another tactic is to set a timer for five minutes and commit to taking a break from the discussion when it goes off. Even if you haven't solved anything by that time, "sticking to the plan together will help build trust in the relationship," Stockard said.
After the break, resume the conversation (and timer) for another five minutes.