Coping With Stress as a Couple

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One’s life as an individual, and as a member of a couple and family, can include a variety of happy and gratifying experiences. However, life also brings various stressful experiences, some predictable and others quite unexpected. These range from relatively minor stresses, such as hosting a holiday extended family gathering, to major stressors, such as the loss of a job or the development of a serious physical health problem. The well-being of an individual or relationship depends in part on people’s ability to cope effectively with such stressors.

Given how common stressors are, substantial research has been done to identify ways of coping that are effective and contribute to well-being, as well as those that can be ineffective or even worsen the situation. Initially, the focus was on forms of coping for individuals. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) identified two major types of coping: forms of problem-focused coping that are designed to reduce or eliminate stressors in a person’s life (e.g., counteracting the loss of a job by actively searching for a new one) and forms of emotion-focused coping that do not remove a stressor but reduce the person’s negative emotional response to it (e.g., exercising, spending time with a caring friend).

Over-reliance on emotion-focused coping strategies, especially those that involve significant avoidance (e.g., substance abuse, excessive screen time) can leave a person at risk of harm from stressors that have not been removed. Thus, a mixture of the two types may be advisable. Those two types of individual coping continue to be widely recognized in the mental health field (Schoenmakers et al., 2015; Skinner et al., 2003).

Coping with stressors within a couple or family context tends to be more complicated. On the one hand, two members may have different preferred strategies, such as when one member of a couple tends to automatically engage in emotion-focused coping to reduce upset feelings, while the other strongly prefers to “get down to business” and find ways to eliminate upsetting stressors. Those individuals are likely to find themselves in conflict, each viewing the other’s primary way of coping as interfering with their own.

In contrast to the potential conflict over coping between members of a couple or family, coping as a team has great potential to be effective and satisfying. Research by Cutrona (1996) has demonstrated how partners’ social support for each other in couple relationships is a valuable resource that contributes to the well-being of the individuals and their bond. Bodenmann (1997, 2005) developed a dyadic model of coping in couples, in which the saying “two heads are better than one” can be true when partners collaborate when life stressors affect them.

A stressor may affect one member of the relationship (e.g., when an individual’s elderly parent is diagnosed with dementia) or both of them (e.g., when a couple’s child is exhibiting behavior problems at school). Furthermore, when stressors initially affect one member of a couple, the negative effects commonly spill over and influence the other person too (Bodenmann et al., 2016; Falconier & Kuhn, 2019; Falconier et al., 2016).

In Bodenmann’s dyadic model of couple stress and coping, the essential first step is for a stressed individual to communicate to their partner about their stress. The more sensitive partners are in identifying cues of stress in themselves and each other, and the more willing they are to disclose stress to each other, the better. Then the partner can provide emotion-focused and/or problem-focused support to the stressed person. Examples of emotion-focused coping assistance are empathic listening as a partner expresses distress and engaging the partner in relaxing activities.

Problem-focused dyadic coping may include discussing possible actions to reduce a stressor (e.g., brainstorming ways a person who lost their job could find a new job) or offering to take over some of the stressed person’s household chores to lighten their load. When a stressor affects both partners (e.g., their child’s behavior problem), they can use coping strategies together. It also is important for partners to avoid negative forms of dyadic coping, such as ambivalent coping in which an individual makes an obviously half-hearted attempt to take over one of their partner’s chores.

In our new book (Epstein & Falconier, 2024), my University of Maryland colleague Dr. Mariana Falconier and I describe couples’ use of dyadic coping to manage a variety of stressors (e.g., financial problems, co-parenting issues, a partner’s psychological problems such as depression) that they face.

A potential barrier to dyadic coping exists when one member of a relationship is less open to seeking and accepting help from someone else. In such situations, it is crucial for the couple to discuss any beliefs a reluctant individual holds, such as a personal standard that asking for help is a sign of weakness. In my work with couples, we sometimes trace such beliefs to experiences growing up in their family of origin, such as messages received from parents when a child was upset about a personal problem.

Another common barrier to dyadic coping is limited couple skills for communicating their ideas and emotions. Widely used guidelines for expressing themselves clearly and constructively, and for listening to each other’s expressions empathically (Epstein & Falconier, 2024; Markman, Stanley & Blumberg, 2010) can make it much easier for a couple to cope with stressors together.

Practicing communication skills for joint problem solving also contributes to good dyadic coping. Steps in couple problem solving include agreeing on a clear definition of a problem the couple experiences, generating potential solutions, collaborating in evaluating advantages and disadvantages of each solution, deciding on a feasible solution they can try, experimenting with the solution in daily life, and revising the solution as needed) (Epstein & Falconier, 2024).

As I mentioned earlier, partners’ different preferences for types of coping also can interfere with coping jointly. A positive approach a couple can take to reduce such a gap is to use communication skills to take turns describing reasons why one likes a way of coping, with the partner providing empathic listening. Thus, partners provide understanding and respect for each other’s preferences and open the door to combining those preferences in the couple’s collaborative coping efforts.