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