Demand-Withdraw Communication in Marital Interaction: Tests of Interspousal Contingency and Gender Role Hypotheses

This article examines the demand-withdraw communication dynamic during which one spouse requests change and the other disengages from the topic. We evaluated two problem-solving discussions by each of 50 married couples using both self-report questionnaires and microanalytic observational coding. Working under the hypothesis that demand-withdraw results from a disparity in the motivation to change, we asked each couple to discuss an issue about which the husband wanted the wife to change and an issue about which the wife wanted the husband to change. Data showed that wives demanded and husbands withdrew during discussions of her issue, whereas husbands demanded and wives withdrew during discussions of his issue. Time-series analyses of observational data confirmed that demand and withdraw behaviors are temporally associated during the course of discussion. We classified couples as bidirectional, wife-dominant, husband-dominant, and nondependent, based on the pattern of interdependency they exhibited. Key Words: communication, demand-withdraw, interaction patterns, marital interaction, time-series analysis. For most of us, romantic relationships provide some of the most meaningful experiences of our lives. They are the source of our most intense joy and, for many, our most desperate pain. Such a crucial, integral aspect of human life undoubtedly deserves attention in the social sciences, particularly given the apparent obstacles to enduring relationships. During 1994, 1,191,000 people in the United States divorced, almost half as many as those who married (Singh, Mathews, Clarke, Yannicos, & Smith, 1995), and recent trends suggest that more than half of remarried individuals will divorce a second time (Hetherington, Stanley-Hagan, & Anderson, 1989). Further, marital discord has been implicated etiologically in such difficulties as depression, anxiety disorders, alcoholism, child behavior problems, and sexual dysfunctions (Jacob, 1987). One important source of marital distress is poor or absent communication. According to Geiss and O'Leary (1981), therapists report that difficulty with communication is the most common complaint of couples seeking treatment. Further, marriage therapists rate poor communication as having the most damaging effects on marital relationships, and they consider communication the most desired focus of relationship research (Geiss & O'Leary, 1981). Poor communication has been found to be cross-sectionally correlated with marital distress, and perhaps also to predict relationship deterioration (Baucom & Adams, 1987; Karney & Bradbury; 1995; Smith, Vivian, & O'Leary, 1991). Through a series of studies, Christensen and his colleagues (Christensen, 1987, 1988; Christensen & Shenk, 1991; Heavey, Layne, & Christensen, 1993; Sullaway & Christensen, 1983) have demonstrated the importance of a specific kind of communication that they refer to as demandwithdraw communication, during which one partner attempts to engage the other in discussing an issue by criticizing, complaining, or suggesting change while the other partner attempts to end the discussion or avoid the topic by changing the subject, remaining silent, or even leaving the room. In particular, they've shown that demand-withdraw interaction is reliably identified and reported by couples and is negatively correlated with relationship adjustment. (See Christensen & Heavey, 1993, and Heavey et al., 1993 for reviews of this literature.) Research also has suggested that the demandwithdraw roles are related to gender. In approximately 60% of couples, wives tend to demand and husbands tend to withdraw; the reverse is true in 30% of couples, and in 10%, husbands and wives demand and withdraw equally (Christensen & Heavey, 1993). Christensen and Heavey (1990) have described two theories to account for these gender differences, one based on individual differences and another based on social structures. …