ABSTRACT
The role of affect within marital conflict has been important for identifying different processes of communication between happily and unhappily married couples. The focus of many studies on marriage has been the identification of negative behavior patterns that predict divorce or characterize negative communication patterns (Lindahl, Clements, & Markman, 1997; Rugel, 1997). This information has been useful both to therapists and researchers in building relationship theory and has been useful as a means for understanding the mechanisms that underlie patterns predictive of divorce.
