Sometimes a couple at this end stage of marriage will come for counseling. On the surface, it may seem like nothing much is wrong because they don’t argue, act contemptuous, or stonewall. The four horsemen are completely absent. Instead, they talk calmly and distantly about their relationship and their conflicts. An inexperienced therapist could easily assume that their problems don’t run very deep. But actually, one or both of them has already disengaged emotionally from the marriage. Our lab studies indicate that these emotionally distant couples do divorce—but they split after an average of
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