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• Apr 29, 2007 11:00 pm US/Eastern
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  How's Your Married Life? Get A Marriage Checkup

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How's Your Married Life? Get A Marriage Checkup

BOSTON (WBZ) ― The vast majority of adults will get married, but we all know the next statistic -- 50 percent of those unions end in divorce.

Now, there's a man who is testing a way to diagnose ailing marriages before they become terminal.

Lou and Gina are like most couples entering their second decade of marriage. "There's certainly areas where we need improvement.. Just like every other couple," said Gina.

They are getting advice on how to make those improvements at Clark University. Prof. James Cordova received a first of its kind grant to study marriages. "We know all this stuff about what's predictive of how couples are going to do in the long run… But it's sitting on library shelves doing really no good."

Lou and Gina filled out an online survey about their life together. "Children, our relationship, our sex life all that other stuff," said Gina.

Then, while note-taking grad students watched via closed circuit TV, Prof. Cordova probed deeply into their relationship. "How couples interact can be indicative of how they'll do in the long run."

Prof. Cordova calls it a "marriage checkup" -- a way to compare relationships with research on what makes some marriages work, while others fail. "We have physical health checkups and dental health checkups... But there's nothing like that for something that's so central to our lives.

Cordova says signs of a troubled marriage include a breakdown in communication, lack of quality time together and arguments that get personal. "Things like name calling... And it's that distinction between 'I wish you'd pick you socks up off the floor, to I wish you would stop being such a pig.'"

Lou and Gina don't have that problem, but they did learn how to better handle conflicts. "You are not being judged," said Lou. "You are not being told who's right and who's wrong."

Armed with a clean bill of marital health -- and some insight -- this is one couple that may be better prepared to handle bumps along the road.

"Just kind of hearing it from a third party was fascinating," said Lou.

Here's the best part about the marriage checkup. Because Prof. Cordova's study is ongoing, anyone who wants a checkup can get one for free. You'll even get a small stipend.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)