Why Watching These Movies Can Save Your Marriage

Relationship researchers cut divorce rate through movie discussions

Movie date nights are not only a lot of fun, they can also help people bond with their partner and even make them horny. But can they help save a marriage?

According to research in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, they can.

“It’s the couples reinvesting in their relationship and taking a cold hard look at their own behavior that makes the difference.”

During their research, Ronald Rogge and Thomas Bradbury — along with contributors Rebecca Cobb, Erika Lawrence, and Matthew Johnson — assembled newlywed couples and had them engage in activities designed to help them navigate the challenges of marriage. The goal was to reduce the chances of getting divorced in the first three years, and to that end, couples were divided into three activity groups:

• Conflict management group, where couples were taught how to use active listening — the practice of rephrasing what their partner told them to help ensure they understood what was said, rather than rushing to respond — to help resolve their problems.
• Compassion and acceptance training group, where couples were encouraged to increase empathy and compassion in their relationships through using accepting language, practicing random acts of kindness and affection, and listening as a friend.
• Movie-and-talk group, where couples watched various movies related to relationships and answered discussion questions together.

When the study was created, researchers thought the movie-and-talk group would benefit from their experience, but were sure the other two groups would be better equipped to handle marital problems.

“We thought the movie treatment would help, but not nearly as much as the other programs in which we were teaching all of these state-of-the-art skills,” said Rogge.

How Movies Saved Marriages

During the study, couples in the movie-and-talk group were given a list of 47 movies to choose from — such as Gone With the Wind, On Golden Pond, Nine Months, Terms of Endearment, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner — and were instructed to watch one movie per week for a month. After viewing the movies, couples had 45-minute discussions about each one in order to understand how the themes and characters of the films could be related to their own relationship and behaviors. Some of the discussion questions included:

• “What main problem(s) did this couple face? Are any of these similar to the problems that the two of you have faced or might face as a couple?”
• “Did this couple strive to understand each other? Did they tend to accept one another, even if they were very different? Or did the couple tend to attack each other’s differences? In what way was this relationship similar to or different from your own relationship in this area?”
• “Did the couple have a strong friendship with each other? Were they able to support each other through bad moods, stressful days, and hard times? Did they listen to each other like good friends? Did the couple in the movie do considerate or affectionate things for each other?”
• “If the couple got into arguments, did they tend to become heated? Did the couple ever start attacking each other, getting increasingly mean and hostile? Did they end up saying things they didn’t really mean? Once this started happening, how did the arguments tend to end?”
• “Did the partners seem to have similar expectations of their relationship? Where did their expectations differ? Did it seem like they were aware of their own expectations? Were their expectations reasonable? Did they share their expectations with each other?”

“We thought the movie treatment would help, but not nearly as much as the other programs in which we were teaching all of these state-of-the-art skills.”

And what was the result of all this movie watching? Researchers found that couples in the movie-and-watch group had the same success rates as those in the other two groups. All of the couples in the study had an 11 percent divorce-and-separation rate over three years, compared to the 24 percent rate of couples in the control group who didn’t receive any marriage education at all. Rogge says the movie approach was so effective because the films were like a mirror into couples’ own behavior, so they could see what they were doing right, and doing wrong, in their relationships.

“I think it’s the couples reinvesting in their relationship and taking a cold hard look at their own behavior that makes the difference. The sad truth is that when life knocks you down, you come home and the people you are most likely to lash out at in frustration are the ones you love the most. For these couples to stop and look and say, ‘You know, I have yelled at you like that before. I have called you names before and that’s not nice. That’s not what I want to do to the person I love the most.’ Just that insight alone is likely what makes this intervention work,” Rogge said. “The results suggest that husbands and wives have a pretty good sense of what they might be doing right and wrong in their relationships. Thus, you might not need to teach them a whole lot of skills to cut the divorce rate. You might just need to get them to think about how they are currently behaving. And for five movies to give us a benefit over three years — that is awesome.”

What’s also awesome, according to Rogge, is that couples who aren’t in the position to participate in skills training with their partner can use this approach to strengthen their relationship on their own at home.

“It’s incredibly portable. There are really great marriage intervention programs available now, but most require trained therapists to administer them,” said Rogge. “If couples can do this on their own, it makes it so much easier to help them.”

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Sources:

Divorce Rate Cut in Half for Couples Who Discussed Relationship Movies. University of Rochester. https://www.rochester.edu/news/divorce-rate-cut-in-half-for-couples-who-discussed-relationship-movies/

UCLA Marriage Enrichment Project — Movie List. University of Rochester. https://www.rochester.edu/news/divorce-rate-cut-in-half-for-couples-who-discussed-relationship-movies/movie-list-and-questions.pdf