By Carol Church, Writer, Family Album
Reviewed by Victor Harris, PhD, Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences, University of Florida
On Friday nights, after finishing a long work week and getting the kids to bed, my husband and I often like to relax by getting takeout and watching a movie. While we think of this as a cheap “date” of sorts, I’m not sure I’d go so far as to consider it any kind of serious relationship maintenance.
However, a study published last year in The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology suggests that something as simple as watching relationship-themed movies together—and talking about them afterwards—could provide key benefits to newly married couples. In fact, this study found that viewing and discussing a few romantic movies might be just as effective at preventing divorce as more in-depth relationship skill programs.
The Experiment: Four Groups Of Couples
The researchers started out with 174 couples who were either planning to marry soon, or who were newly married. Couples were pretty similar when it came to their relationship satisfaction and other general characteristics.
Next, the couples were placed in four groups. Group 1 was given instruction in relationship communication skills over the course of four sessions. Group 2 also met four times, and went through a course on empathy and compassion for each other.
Meanwhile, Group 3 attended a single session where they watched a romantic movie and talked about the importance of awareness in relationships. This group was also supposed to go home, watch four more romantic movies (chosen from a researcher-provided list) with each other, and talk about them afterwards. The last group, Group 4, did not receive any treatments at all.
Which Groups Did Best?
Three years later, the researchers checked in with the couples to see how they were doing. They expected to find that the couples who didn’t get any relationships skills training would have higher rates of divorce and separation, and this was true. In fact, these couples split up almost twice as often. However, they were surprised to learn that the simplest, most low-cost intervention—the one where couples watched movies together—was just as effective at lowering divorce rates as the other two programs.
Why Would Movies Help?
Why would this be? While the researchers can’t be sure, it’s possible that just the act of focusing more thoughtfully on our relationships and our commitment to them—no matter how we do it—improves the situation.
So what does this mean for me and my husband? Well, recently we’ve been watching a lot of Game of Thrones. I’m not sure this qualifies as a romantic movie! However, I’ll take these findings as a good sign that our weekly “date night” has promise to be a positive step for our marriage. And certainly, as the researchers point out, a “program” like this is easy and enjoyable for couples to apply. Maybe next time, we’ll try something with a few less dragons and beheadings and a few more realistic relationships.
(Photo credit: Jean Harlow Movie Stories by RockyandNelson. CC BY 2.0.)
References:
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. doi: 10.1037/a0034209
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