also found that members of couples that divorced didn’t show big changes in their own negative behavior toward their partners (such as hostility or criticism), or their reports of how badly their partners behaved. This suggests that the emergent distress model was not a good predictor of divorce. If problems surfaced over time, then we would expect to see more negativity over time. Instead, couples showed a decline in the positive, rather than a rise in the negative. However, that study only addressed the presence of negative behaviors, not the presence of specific problems. It is possible that couples that do not experience changes in overt behaviors toward each other, such as how often they criticize or yell at a partner, still experience an increase in the number of problems in their relationships. New problems can arise without necessarily causing partners to behave badly toward one another. For example, problems with your in-laws could worsen after the birth of a child, but that might not lead you to directly criticize or otherwise abuse your partner.