The Harder We Tried, The Worse It Got
The right way to work on your relationship
15 years ago I was in a deep rut in my relationship. Desperate to make things work, I did everything experts recommend. I read books and asked happy couples for advice. I practiced active listening and tried hard to look in the mirror. I scheduled weekly couple's exercises.
As I did all that, I ultimately destroyed my relationship in the process.1
It was a brutal paradox: the harder we worked on our relationship, the faster it fell apart. Every new communication technique highlighted something wrong. Every exercise amplified our dysfunction, rather than helping us see what was working.
I thought we were doomed. Then I discovered a study that changed everything I believed about relationships.
A landmark three-year study of 174 couples at UCLA tested a variety of relationship building methods:
Group 1 completed training in conflict resolution (PREP: Prevention and Relationship Enhancement program)
Group 2 completed training on developing empathy for and acceptance of their partners (CARE: Compassionate and Accepting Relationships through Empathy)
Group 3 simply watched rom-coms together and discussed them afterward
Group 4 was a control group that did nothing at all
Surprisingly, Group 3 improved their relationships just as much as Groups 1 and 2.2 Let that sink in. When Harry Met Sally might do you more good than hours of communication workshops.
Not only that, but while Groups 1, 2 and 3 displayed half the divorce rate of the Group 4 couples (who did nothing), the skills-training groups sometimes benefitted the least in the areas their training was supposed to improve. For example, the Group 1 women who learned conflict resolution skills showed slower declines in hostile behavior than Groups 2 and 3.
When we’re advised to work on our relationship, are we just spending time and money opening up fissures in our relationship? Is there a better way? Let’s talk about it.
Relationship Awareness Matters A Lot
As stated above, watching romantic movies and discussing them appears to be just as effective as formal relationship skills training. How can this be?
The answer lies in a concept known as relationship awareness: a practice of paying attention to your own behavior in your relationship and deciding for yourself if it is constructive or destructive. The movie watching exercise was designed to directly improve relationship awareness: by seeing people in common relationship dynamics and situations on screen, couples were able to draw parallels that helped them understand their own role and behavior. Then, they were able to talk through those factors in a low pressure, conversational setting.
On the other hand, the relationship skill building group ran into a common pitfall. When we fixate on skills exclusively, we can end up focusing a “skills gap” in our partner as the primary issue. In general, even if our partner lacks skill in some area, criticizing, resenting, or—worst of all!—trying to “help” them improve their skills is usually ineffective at best. In contrast, our own behavior is easier for us to influence, so simply being aware of what we are doing can drive us to make changes.
This research suggests that most couples already have the capabilities we require. Rather than skills training, most of us just need a reminder to be aware of our own role and agency in what’s working and not working in our relationship.
Raise Your Relationship Awareness
I’m not urging you to give up on improving your relationship or improving your skills. Instead, I recommend shifting your approach from skills-first to awareness-first.
For example, instead of asking "What skill deficiency is causing this problem?" ask "How can we better notice and appreciate what we're already doing well?" or “what behavior on my part might improve the situation?” Here are three research-backed questions to help you build your own relational awareness:3
How am I striving to understand my partner and accept them, even where we are different?
Am I able to listen to my partner like a good friend?
Am I aware of my own expectations in the relationship and are they reasonable and shared?
This can easily be a powerful weekly or monthly reflection. You can set a simple Google Calendar event with a notification to remind you to reflect on these questions and strengthen your own relationship awareness.
That relationship I mentioned at the beginning? It didn't survive. But it taught me something invaluable: Sometimes the best thing you can do for your relationship is to stop trying so hard to find a solution and instead raise your awareness of your role in the problem.
Next movie night, try this: Instead of scrolling through your phone, watch how the characters navigate their relationship and what similarities you see to your own. Then ask yourself: What am I already doing well, and what would I like to do differently?
Your answers might surprise you.
This failure ultimately brought me to my wonderful wife and my love of relationship science—which gave me the skills to work on our relationship without making it worse, so there was definitely some good that came from it!
Rogge, R. D., Cobb, R. J., Lawrence, E., Johnson, M. D., & Bradbury, T. N. (2013). Is skills training necessary for the primary prevention of marital distress and dissolution? A 3-year experimental study of three interventions. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 81(6), 949-961.
This resonates! I am far from a relationship expert from a theoretical perspective, but last month marked 39 years since my wife and I met and started to date. Fair amount of lived experience. 🙂
We have had our fair shares of twists and turns. And, I would also say overwhelmingly more good times than bad, by a lot.
If I were to try and pinpoint the secret, I think it’s like many things in life, it’s awareness. Honoring who the other person is - good times and not. Often I see couples struggling because the other person won’t change or won’t live up to the expectations that is built up in our minds of how a partner is supposed to act. Obviously, I’m assuming foundational things like trust, honor, respect. But, I’ve watched couples in their 40s and 50s grow apart, and maybe for some it’s the right answer.
But going back to your findings of watching a romcom, I see that as people growing together, rather than apart. My wife loves certain shows, I’m fairly indifferent. But we watch those shows almost every night together. Why? Because I know it’s important to her and it gives us a common language, bond experience especially when we watch shows that mirror aspects of our own lives like romcoms.
Great post, Cam. 👏🏻