Why do some people stay married and some split up? A new study by the University of Michigan works to answer that question.

U of M researcher Kira Birditt tells WWJ’s Zahra Huber that newlyweds who yell or call each other names during a fight have a higher chance of getting divorced.

Another bad sign, Birditt said, is when just one spouse deals with conflict by calmly discussing the situation while the other withdraws.

“All of the work that I do shows that everyone has lots of problems in their relationships, and that problems are a normal part of out close ties,” Birditt said.

“But I think that how we deal with problems is actually the more important factor. And I like to show that certain ways of dealing with conflict might be better or worse than others,” she said.

Additionally, couples who had less income, couples who married young, couples who had children from previous relationships were more likely to divorce.  Also, less-educated couples were more likely to split up.

Out of the 373 couples who were part of the study, 46 percent had divorced by their 16th year of marriage.

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