Picking your Battles

Overlooking hurtful behavior is bad for your relationship and bad for your health. Our studies reveal that talking to your partner about what annoys you can only benefit your relationship. Now's the time to start speaking up!

by Erina Lee, Ph.D. and Heather Setrakian

Ouch! You were wounded as a result of someone’s inconsiderate or neglectful behavior. Maybe he forgot the plans he made with you, left some socks on the floor, or didn’t give you the information you needed. You feel yourself getting irritated. Do you confront the issue – have a conversation – or let it slide? Maybe if you ignore it, it will go away. According to research, including some conducted by our own eHarmony Labs, confronting the issue can have benefits to your relationship and your health.

In a study conducted through eHarmony Labs, both members of 1,036 married heterosexual couples completed an online national survey that included measures of marital satisfaction, perception of their partners’ annoying behaviors in the previous 24 hours, and whether they expressed their annoyance to their partners. Results showed that 40% of respondents perceived their partners as annoying during the previous day, with wives more likely to perceive annoying behavior than husbands.

Those who perceived their spouses’ behavior as annoying reported lower levels of marital satisfaction. Interestingly, the offending spouses reported that their marital satisfaction was unaffected by being thought of as annoying. Wives who expressed their annoyance to their husbands reported higher levels of marital satisfaction. In addition, husbands who expressed their annoyance had wives who reported higher levels of marital satisfaction. In other words, wives experienced higher marital satisfaction when they expressed their own annoyance and when their husbands expressed annoyance.

In another study, Denton and Burleson (2007) investigated initiator styles in discussions of problems. They were interested in how likely married people were to start conversations about specific problems within the marriage. Although women in this study were more likely to initiate these discussions than men, both men and women who initiated the discussions were also more likely to be happier in their relationships.