'This is fixable': What really helps save relationship

What couples therapists want you to know about trying to save a relationship that's going downhill.

If you're in an unhappy relationship, you may suffer from heartache – literally.

Vicious arguments can result in poor sleep and even heart pain and muscle pain. They can make everyone in the family, including children, more vulnerable to physical and mental health problems. A happy relationship can boost your health and even your lifespan. An unhappy one can have the opposite effect, raising your risk of an earlier death by chipping away at your health. 

In fact, poor-quality close relationships are considered a health risk factor equal to or greater than smoking or lack of exercise. And then, of course, there's the metaphorical heartache: the pain of love unravelling.

So how do you turn an unhappy relationship into a happy one? And is that even possible?

A growing body of research reveals some surprising answers – and spells hope for couples committed to a turnaround.

If you enter a new relationship and the first argument you have with your partner is about dirty dishes, you may be catching a glimpse of the distant future: research suggests that what couples argue about remains pretty constant throughout the relationship. These recurring problems are known as perpetual or gridlocked issues. 

"Those gridlocked issues could be about finances, parenting, their sex lives, how they negotiate power in the relationship," says Carrie Cole, a psychologist and the director of research at The Gottman Institute for couples therapy in Seattle, US. But also, they can be about seemingly minor issues such as neatness. 

In one longitudinal study, psychologist John Gottman and his team observed couples' disagreements in an initial assessment, and four years later. They found that 69% of the time the couples were still arguing over the same type of issues they had debated those four years earlier.

Other studies have revealed a similar pattern, with certain core issues such as money coming up in conflicts across households and even across cultures. Disagreements over money, in particular, cause the most persistent and heated rows. Unequal division of housework is another cause of tensions, and can raise the likelihood of divorce.

In itself, disagreement isn't necessarily a bad sign. It can just be a natural part of learning to understand and respond to each other's needs. And both happy and unhappy couples argue.

The crucial difference between happy and unhappy couples is how they behave towards each other, research suggests – during and also outside of arguments.

Four behaviours that can 'kill a relationship'

Cole cites four specific behaviours that signal your relationship may be headed for a break-up, according to studies: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling (which means withdrawal from a conflict by refusing to engage).

"Those four behaviours will kill a relationship," says Cole. But, she adds, "they are fixable, if the couple wants to fix them." (Read on for specific tips.)

In fact, it's not just the relationship that's at risk: separate research has shown that persistent criticism from one's partner significantly predicts an earlier........

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