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Normatively, marital happiness decreases over time. Because depression is linked to marital discord and divorce rates hover near 50%, interventions that reduce marital dissatisfaction have clinical and public health merit. For this Internet-based, controlled study, investigators recruited a community-based convenience sample of 120 heterosexual married couples (mean age, 40; mean marriage length, 11 years). Participants were assessed for relationship satisfaction, love, intimacy, trust, passion, and commitment every 4 months for 2 years (7 waves of assessments). For waves 2 through 7, each spouse also provided “fact-based,” behavior-focused summaries of their most significant disagreements and rated conflict-related distress.
At 12 months, t…