Couples who seek a stable and satisfying relationship must recover emotionally and reestablish their intimate connection after their conflicts are over. In a 3-week diary study, 100 cohabiting couples reported on their daily moods, intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and conflicts. Results indicated that on days following a conflict, couple partners have worse mood, less satisfaction, and less self-disclosure than on other days. Attachment security and intimacy partially moderated the ability of relationship partners to recover positive and reduce negative affect on days following conflict. Partners of anxiously attached individuals experienced more pronounced postconflict changes in mood and intimacy than partners of securely attached individuals. More intimacy in postconflict interactions was associated with a faster recovery from conflict.How a couple recovers from conflict may be as important to the ongoing functioning of their relationship as their behavior during conflict.In order to sustain a high level of intimacy and satisfaction over many years and through many disagreements, a couple must be able to come back together after conflict and reestablish their intimate bond. Although much is known about the impact of couples' behavior during conflict, less is known about how couples reconcile following conflict. The purpose of this study is to investigate romantic couples' recoveries from conflict, and to determine (a) whether information about the short-term aftermath of conflict can help predict the well-being of individual partners and their relationship and (b) whether we can reliably identify characteristics of individuals or relationships to better predict which couples will experience negative effects of conflict beyond the day when the conflict occurs. It is our contention that couples who are able to recover and resume intimate relating soon after conflict are less likely to avoid conflict when it arises and, as a result, less likely to live with unresolved issues contaminating the relationship. Teaching couples how to recover once they have conflict may contribute as much to marital therapy success as does teaching them how 308

This study used 115 cohabiting couple partners' 21-day diaries, with which they reported each evening on their moods and their relationships, to test hypotheses about connections between withdrawal following conflict, attachment insecurity, and affective recovery from conflict (i.e., post-conflict relationship satisfaction, positive and negative mood, and intimacy). Individuals reported on their own and their partners' post-conflict withdrawals. Results indicated that individuals who withdrew following conflicts, or whose partners withdrew, experienced worse post-conflict affective recoveries, particularly if they intended to punish their partners by withdrawing. Conversely, withdrawing from a punitive partner buffered the individual from some aftereffects of conflict. Support for our hypothesis that anxious attachment would exacerbate effects of withdrawing on recovery was unexpectedly weak. Conclusions address the negative and punishing impact of post-conflict withdrawing on couple partners' affective recoveries and associations between anxious attachment and post-conflict recovery.

Self-disclosure ordinarily benefits individual well-being; however, if someone discloses with an unresponsive listener, self-disclosure may fail to enhance well-being. Because prior research has primarily studied the additive effects of disclosure and listener’s responsiveness on well-being, this study investigated their interactive effects on well-being in romantic relationships. Because attachment orientation is closely associated with needs for intimacy, we further inquired into moderating effects of attachment on associations between intimacy and well-being. One-hundred fifteen cohabiting couples completed 21 daily diaries in which they recorded their experiences interacting with their partners. High self-disclosure during interactions that lacked expressed understanding yielded negative rather than positive outcomes. Multiple interactions between participants’ and partners’ attachment insecurity and intimacy were especially associated with depressive symptoms and relationship satisfaction. Results highlight the importance of the relational context of self-disclosure and well-being.

We designed 3 studies to identify postconflict behaviors that aid or hinder couple partners' emotional recoveries from their conflicts. For Study 1, we created a codebook of 18 postconflict behaviors, derived from 230 participants' daily descriptions of reconciliation efforts over a 3-week period. In Study 2, 340 MTurk participants used a checklist to report which of the 18 behaviors they engaged in following their most recent conflict with their partner. An orthogonal factor analysis revealed four dimensions of postconflict behavior: avoidance (e.g., sulk/withdraw), active repair (e.g., apologize), gain a new perspective (e.g., seek help from friends), and let go (e.g., drop the conflict). In Study 3, 226 cohabiting couples completed a 2-week diary for which they reported on their postconflict reconciliation strategies. Results revealed that postconflict behavior dimensions active repair and gain a new perspective predicted better postconflict residual affective recovery on days with conflict. In contrast, avoidance predicted poorer affective recovery on days with conflict. These results suggest that couples' behavior after conflict can facilitate or inhibit them from reconnecting intimately.