Thanks to the seemingly endless stream of celebrity news and political gossip, high-profile divorces are often discussed. These marital splits are often filled with betrayal, adultery and various other scandals.
However, divorce experts throughout the country are finding that these Hollywood-style, high-drama divorces are not the norm. In fact, author Pamela Haag estimates that nearly 60 percent of divorces in the U.S. are break-ups of couples considered “low conflict,” according to the Chicago Tribune. In these cases, the pattern is a slow wearing-down of the relationship and the intimacy until couples are more like cohabitating strangers than lovers.
“The ambient noise of life takes over,” Edward M. Hallowell, director of the Massachusetts-based Hallowell Centers for Cognitive and Emotional Health, told the publication. “There’s no big conflict; couples have just lost touch with each other, lost the fun, lost the moments of sustained attention because we live surrounded by this buzz.”
Some of the culprits of this growing disconnection between spouses include technology, negativity and unequal power, states the news source.
According to Psych Central, couples who report fighting excessively will rarely see change in this dynamic, but couples who report little to moderate conflict levels have a better chance of changing their situations. Spouses in low-conflict relationships commonly have personalities classified as validator or avoider.
