Is Divorce Preventable?

Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collectio n

CAN WE REALLY STEM THE TIDE OF DIVORCE?
Chesterfield County Program Trains for Marriage

By Patricia Cullen, M.S.N., Chesterfield, Virginia
Virginia State Bar Family Law News, Fall 1999

Family law attorneys live on the front lines of family breakup. On a
daily basis, you observe the toll divorce takes on adults and children
alike. Sometimes you succeed in helping your divorcing clients reach
fair settlements without protracted litigation. In other situations,
this is impossible and court intervention is inevitable. Particularly
when children are involved, you may often wonder if it is possible, at
least in some cases, to prevent the heartache you frequently witness in
your role as legal advocate and counselor.

For the past 20 years, two researchers at the University of Denver Center
for Marital and Family Studies, Drs. Howard Markman and Scott Stanley,
have been working with their associates to find out whether or not
divorce is preventable. During the initial phase of their research,
these two psychologists studied newly married couples over a number of
years to see who would stay married and who would eventually divorce.
They found that the variable most likely to predict marital success was
the ability to manage conflict well. In other words, couples who somehow
knew how to work out their differences effectively were the couples most
likely to remain happily married. Couples who could not find
constructive ways to handle typical marital conflicts were far more
likely to divorce, no matter how happily married they were at first.

Based on what they had observed in their initial research, the Denver
team then developed a couples' class to teach the communication skills
all couples need to argue effectively and maintain the fun and friendship
which brought them together in the first place. The class is called
"Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP)." In a five-year
follow-up study, the researchers found that couples who attended PREP had
a divorce rate 50% lower than control couples who did not. These findings
have been replicated in other studies, both here and abroad, and give
cause for optimism about slowing down the divorce rate.

In Chesterfield County, Virginia, the local mental health center began
offering the PREP program to county residents in 1994. The class is
offered several times a year to married and engaged couples for a nominal
fee. The response to this seven-session class has been quite favorable.
Clients' written evaluations give the content and instructors high
ratings.

The class is education, not therapy. There is no "sharing" of private
matters or feelings with other couples. "Marriage education", like other
adult education, is designed to teach skills to people who actually want
to learn them and have voluntarily taken the initiative to improve
themselves. Like adult education, it builds on students' existing skills
and life experiences.

In a six-month phone follow-up study conducted last year, 80% of the
couples who had participated in the class were still using the
communication skills they had learned, particularly a communication skill
called the speaker-listener technique. This structured, practical
technique is used when couples confront a difficult conflict that could
easily escalate into a destructive fight. It slows down the conversation
so that each person knows the other is really listening. It is nearly
impossible for conflict to escalate when both parties are listening
carefully, honestly and openly.

In addition to the speaker-listener technique and other methods for
fighting fairly, the Chesterfield class also contains material on problem
solving, how to deepen marital commitment, and enhancing fun and
intimacy. Each week, couples get to practice new skills in breakout
sessions, in which the couples work privately with one of the
instructors, who coaches them as they practice their new skills. Research
at the University of Denver has shown that practicing with an instructor
during class helps couples learn the techniques correctly. Couples are
then much more confident about their ability to use the techniques where
it really counts - at home.

PREP is one of the best-researched marital education programs in the
country. The program is useful to couples who have a good marriage and
simply want to "make a good thing better," as well as for couples who are
struggling.

Although many couples could benefit from the information and skills
presented in the class, unfortunately PREP is not yet widely available.
We now know what makes a marriage successful and how to prevent divorce.
The challenge is how to get this important information out to the public,
so we can begin to reduce our divorce rate. Spread the word.

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