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Marital satisfaction can decline when children reach adolescence, but teenagers are not necessarily the cause.

The adolescent years often concur with other tensions that can stress a marriage.

Understanding each partner's internal experience and the relationship dynamics can help couples become closer.

The first step in this process is self-reflection.

Couples who are parents of teenagers often feel at their wits’ end. Irritated, isolated, even disillusioned, they may reflexively blame their teenager for the strain on their marriage. Sure, a teenager can test a marriage: Teenagers can be moody, engage in risky behaviors and expose differences in parenting styles. However, there often is much more to the story.

Let’s look more deeply at what each partner may be experiencing and the dynamics that may be unfolding between them. Here, I’m focusing on couples who are in their mid-40s to mid-50s and who have been together for about 15 years or longer.

Life at this stage often comes with multiple concurrent demands. Imagine a couple, each closing in on 50 years old. They are at the peaks of their careers, with more responsibility, pressure and opportunity than ever. One lays awake at night, crunching the numbers for college tuition and retirement planning. On the weekends, they divide and conquer, not just with parenting tasks, but also with caring for aging parents. One experiences hot flashes and brain fog; the other is exhausted after the same workouts........

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