Back in 2003 when my marriage blew up, I did an awful lot of relationship research very fast. Unfortunately, we didn't follow aggressively enough on some of the research I did, but I did learn some really interesting basic stuff:
- Couples Therapy has a horrific failure rate
- Its the best game in town
- There are a tiny number of people getting about a 20% or some such success rate ('success' being defined as 'the couple is still around 1-3 years later, depending upon whose math you use)
- The Gottman Institute seems to have the most serious research-derived models and seems to be getting the best results. Notably, above 70% success rates, which is a damned far cry from 20%.
And it seems that the work that the Gottman Institute has been doing has continued on apace. Here is a very recent speech. Wow. Just wow.