Managing Conflict in Marriage

I think that Gottman’s estimation that 69% of problems in marriage are perpetual is accurate. Gottman does a lot of research based on his love lab, where couples of all kinds come in to get their relationship tested. He has an extremely high accuracy rate in predicting whether a couple will get divorced or not, so I am pretty sure that after going over so many lab studies, he is able to get a pretty good estimate of perpetual issues that married couples have. It does seem like a high amount, but I feel like, at least in my case, a lot of the problems that couples have seem to keep occurring over and over. This is because no matter what we do, some things cannot be changed. We have all grown up differently, and gotten used to doing certain things certain ways for many years, so just because someone doesn’t want you to do them anymore doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. It is really hard for people to change, and it takes a lot of work and effort that many people aren’t willing to go through when they don’t think they are in the wrong.

I know that a problem that I have, that I am not sure will ever go away, is that I misplace things a lot. Maybe it is a bit worse because we live in a cramped apartment where we don’t have a lot of room for things so there is more clutter around and it is easier to lose track of things, but I lose things every day. I have ADHD and can be very absent-minded, and I also have a tendency to leave clutter around, so it makes losing things very easy. My husband gets really frustrated with me sometimes when I lose things, but it is just something that we have both realized will probably never change. There are things that I have finally accepted will never change (after a year in marriage) and that I have just stopped expecting my husband to comply to. His manners aren’t the best, and as hard as  I try to correct him, it doesn’t work. As long as you are able to cope with the perpetual problems, the relationship will be alright.