While we delve into the intricate aspects of dyadic coping in the next few sections, including its definitions, types, and practical applications what becomes clear is that an environment conducive to an open dialogue and empathy is essential to the flourishing of dyadic coping strategies. These strategies, I would venture to say, underpin the resilience of healthy couples across the lifespan of their relationships.
To that end, this article aims to equip you, the reader, with some knowledge and some tools concerning dyadic coping who uses it and how it works that may serve you well both in helping yourself and in helping others navigate through the we of a relationship during hard times.
Understanding Dyadic Coping
An essential aspect of relationships, especially when dealing with the kinds of stress and challenges that life can throw our way, is the way that couples cope with these stressors. When we look at the way that couples share life’s problems, we see something like team coping. We don’t usually face the problem with the common partner to partner alone but rather in a united way—approaching the problem as if we’re two parts of a whole.
An integral aspect that team or dyadic coping shares involves not just the ways that each member of the couple copes individually but also how they meld their coping styles together to deal with the shared problem at hand.
At its heart, dyadic coping is classified into a few basic types: supportive dyadic coping, delegated dyadic coping, and negative dyadic coping. Supportive dyadic coping is when one partner provides emotional or practical support to the other during times of stress (such as listening and validating) (Bodenmann, 2000).
It’s less obvious what constitutes delegated dyadic coping, but it probably happens more often than you think. This is when one partner pretty much handles things the other partner usually handles, or at least acts as he or she does, to take the edge off the other partner’s stress (Bodenmann, 2000).
Communal coping strategies in dyadic coping also deserve attention. They involve viewing problems or stressors as things the couple must tackle together. Doing this, research suggests, allows couples not only to serve up a dose of we-ness in their problem-solving but also to embrace a couple-centered way of life that yields more payoffs (in the form of relationship satisfaction and resilience) than living as separate entities, even if only temporarily (Lyons et al., 1998).
| Type of Dyadic Coping | Definition |
|---|---|
| Supportive Dyadic Coping (problem/emotion focused) | One partner provides emotional or practical support to alleviate the other’s stress. |
| Delegated Dyadic Coping | One partner assumes certain tasks or responsibilities to help reduce stress for the other. |
| Negative Dyadic Coping | Reactions that minimize or dismiss the partner’s feelings might worsen tension instead of easing it. |
| Communal Coping Strategies | Couples view and approach stressors as shared problems rather than individual issues. |
When individuals explore the meanings and aspects of dyadic coping, they gain a better grasp of how they deal with stressful situations as a partnership. They also get a sense of what might be possible if they were to adopt practices that represent the optimal form of this kind of stress management. It turns out that on average, members of resilient couples use a greater variety of dyadic coping strategies than do members of less resilient pairs.
The Science Behind Dyadic Coping and Relationship Resilience
The idea of dyadic coping has evolved tremendously in recent years. As a result, we have what is now a more lucid understanding of why dyadic coping matters, why it’s good to have, and why promoting it can lead to healthier partnerships for individuals living in our society (Bodenmann et al., 2018).
A lot of research has been done to understand how dyadic coping contributes to relationship quality (Lyons et al., 1998; Rafaeli & Gleason, 2009; Badr & Acitelli, 2017; Bergstraesser et al., 2014; Bertschi et al., 2021; Bodenmann, 1997, 2000, 2005, 2008; Bodenmann et al., 2018; Bodenmann et al., 2001; Falconier & Kuhn, 2019; Hilpert et al., 2016). It has consistently been shown that when couples are together in a non-stressful situation, they tend to express a lot of affection and intimacy (Lyons et al., 1998). On the other hand, when they are together in a stressful situation, they typically don’t act lovingly or intimately.
Attachment theory offers insight into how the secure attachment that partners form with each other encourages not only the expression of concern for each other but also the expression of vulnerabilities. It is these vulnerabilities that partners feel free to express, which makes possible the kinds of comforting and assuring dyadic coping strategies that serve to ameliorate the immediate effects of stress and also help set the stage for dealing with the underlying problems that caused the stress in the first place (Vedelago et al., 2023).
The importance and indeed the necessity of incorporating dyadic coping into standard relationship practice come straight from the science. For couples to improve their relationship, they need to understand not just the what or the how of dyadic coping but also the why. We believe this is as simple as it gets: The better you understand something, the more value you place on it, and the more seriously you take it. And that is the foundation upon which we aim to build this chapter.
The Role of Communication in Dyadic Coping
The essential key to dyadic coping is effective communication. When partners in a relationship communicate well, they have the resilience to get through life’s tough times. And when they have the resilience to make it through the tough times, they earn the right to stay together (happily, that is).
This happens because the partners in the relationship open up, and then they trust each other enough to keep on communicating. They set the stage (and the dialogue) for not just ascertaining and expressing the emotions that each partner feels, but also for understanding the kinds of things that are making a partner feel stressed.
An important part of communication in a two-person support system is the ability to listen (Bodenmann, 1997). This involves much more than just the simple cognition of sounds. It is the act of taking in the words of the speaker and interpreting their meaning. Good listeners in dyadic coping situations are not just understanding the “what” of the conversation, they comprehend the message and the emotion that is contained within it.
When partners in dyadic coping feel that they are both understood and understood well, something akin to trust is built. Hearing and understanding create a powerful emotional intimacy that when coupled with the act of talking makes for a two-way street in the appearance of a secure base for the partners in the relationship. Executing dyadic coping strategies demands that both partners communicate clearly, compassionately, and equally – the techniques used in communicating tend to determine the nature and quality of a relationship.
| Technique | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Active Listening | To ensure each partner feels heard and respected. |
| “I” Statements | To express personal feelings without attributing blame. |
| Setting Aside Dedicated Times for Conversation | To promote uninterrupted exchange of thoughts and feelings. |
| Giving Constructive Feedback | To address issues positively while fostering growth. |
When couples make efficient communication their top priority, they construct a resilient relationship capable of withstanding the inevitable stressors that life throws their way. The reason that communication matters so much is that it is the duct tape of a relationship; while it is not always pretty, it is a conversation that holds the partnership together.
Techniques for Effective Dyadic Coping
In the path leading toward strengthening relational resilience and relational connectedness, the importance of dyadic coping tends to be emphasized. Dyadic coping isn’t only about managing stress together; it is also about understanding one another’s experiences of stress, engaging deeply with one another’s caring, and working as a true team toward reaching solutions that favor the “us” of the relationship.
The bedrock of productive joint coping is empathic listening. Coping is a joint enterprise requiring the cooperation and coordination of at least two people. When a couple faces life stressors together, they need to be able to work as a team to deal with the problem effectively and to share the emotional burden that comes with it. To do this, they must be in good “tuning” with each other, and this is where listening comes in. Listening could not be a more simple word, but it is more than just hearing words. When you listen, you need to be receiving not just a verbal message but also a nonverbal one.
An important method in dyadic coping concerns solving problems together (communal). Once active listening has set the stage for understanding and empathy, it is smooth sailing toward “we-oriented” problem-solving. Shared problem-solving is not about one partner telling the other what to do. Both partners work together to identify what the problem is, to brainstorm what possible solutions might be (without censoring any wild ideas), to evaluate these alternatives together, and then to choose what seems to both of them the best course of action.
This process of working together serves several functions: It mitigates stress by dividing it, reinforces the sense of being a unified team, and it makes each partner feel important. Problem-solving serves the function of problem-solving and relationship-building.
We find that regular mutual check-ins with our respective feelings and the state of our relationship go a long way toward preventing minor issues from happening. They also allow us to maintain the trust required to keep life together from devolving into a series of unfortunate events that could end up taking a hard-to-reverse toll on a relationship.
When couples master the techniques of empathetic listening, problem-solving, and clear communication of needs, they do far more than learn to get along. They lay down a foundation far stronger than any mere “getting along” relationship.
Navigating Challenges Together
In life’s voyage, couples confront many difficulties that strain the endurance and resilience of their partnership. Financial pressures, health problems, or external stressors, like job loss or relocation, can hurt a couple’s connection and shared happiness. These are the times when an individual’s support of their partner means everything. Dyadic coping, figuring out together how to deal with tough times, is the focus of this section. It is the main thing that helps couples navigate the challenges of life in tandem.
Financial Hardships and Dyadic Coping
Couples often cite money problems as a top reason for their struggles or splits. However, dyadic coping strategies can help partners tackle financial issues together. These simple strategies can turn a potentially damaging “we versus me” scenario into a united front (Lyons et al., 1998). As seen in the example of one couple—Jane and Alex—facing a serious financial problem in their lives, these basic rules can be put into practice for any couple. Both of these partners in this coupledom scenario are earning their way through life together with undue strain.
Meeting every week, they went over their budget and set practical, debt-reduction goals. They looked together for sources of added income. They did all this not just to ease their financial strain but also to strengthen their emotional bond. The more they faced their problems as a team, the more they felt like a team—together against the world.
Health Challenges as Catalysts for Dyadic Growth
One situation where dyadic coping can have a profound effect on the relationship dynamics is when a partner is diagnosed with a serious illness or sustains a life-altering injury (Traa et al., 2015). For example, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) to one partner certainly can present that kind of relationship challenge for both partners. When faced with the kind of future most people would find frightening and uncertain, that couple utilizing dyadic coping to encounter it together, with their heads held high, would likely experience reduction in stress (and maybe even help with not exacerbating the health condition).
External Stressors: Moving Beyond Individual Coping
With internal stressors, such as infidelity or disagreements, individual coping mechanisms are often utilized, or outside support is sought after (Falconier & Kuhn, 2019). But, when external stressors, like losing a job or having to relocate for work, hit a couple, they must leave behind their coping mechanisms and start working together as partners toward a common end. Instead of dealing with a situation in a way that could pull a couple apart (such as the loss of a partner’s job), they work together by reimagining their joint financial future as something that could be worked on together until a resolution presents itself (like the partner is gainfully employed again).
And this isn’t just a handbook scenario of how to renegotiate joint financial issues. It’s also a handbook scenario of what it means to stay emotionally connected when one partner is down and out.
These instances of financial hardship, health struggles, and common stressors make it clear that carrying out dyadic coping in real-life situations isn’t just a conduit for effective navigation through turbulent times, but serves a greater purpose. It transforms the kinds of adversities equally faced by partners into something stronger—love, trust, and resilience.
Cultivating a Supportive Environment for Dyadic Coping
It is vital to grow an environment that allows dyadic coping to exist. It is crucial not only to the development of any relationship but also its strength and durability over time.
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Communicating openly: The top priority in this somewhat forgotten art should be as simple as this: Say what you need to say, even if you think it will provoke a negative reaction from your partner. Be straight with them, and leave your partner to be free in coming to their own feelings about what you’ve shared.
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Setting aside time together: What better way to have a couple’s retreat right smack in the middle of your busy lives than by working to connect in the same unfettered way you did when you first started dating? Quality time means being 100 percent with each other, so put away your phones and any work that might distract you from this significant moment.
- Cultivating personal hobbies alongside shared interests: In my experience, building a strong relationship with individual pursuits doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intent and awareness. Individual interests might seem trivial in comparison to the coordination and partnership needed to play together well. But symmetry is what makes a duet work.
An essential part of developing a supportive atmosphere involves recognizing the value of self-care in talents that promote resilience. This goes beyond what “counts” as support in the eyes of either partner and emphasizes what each individual can do for themselves to maintain and, when necessary, restore their mental health. Think of this as your mental health toolbox, which includes healthy life choices, the pursuit of personal milestones, and the never-to-be-shunned option of therapy if your mental health wobbles too much.
It is not always easy to take oneself off the back burner and put oneself on the front burner, but self-care is the runway on which resilient relationships take off! The goal is to establish a protective environment where both partners can let down their emotional guard without concern for criticism. This is essential because it sets the stage for the relationship to cultivate and employ mechanisms for handling joint stress—what researchers call dyadic coping.
Tools and Resources for Enhancing Dyadic Coping Skills
When couples work toward a relationship that is both strong and resilient, they walk a path that involves them mutually coping together. This is dyadic coping, and it is crucial to relationship resilience. Yet not all couples are well-versed, or even somewhat versed, like dyadic coping. They may not have much of a handle on it, either theoretically or practically.
These couples may need some help. Fortunately, there are many (more than I can list here but I’ll start with a couple for each) excellent books (“Couples Coping with Stress: Emerging Perspective on Dyadic Coping (Decade of Behavior),” and “When We Are Stressed: A Dyadic Approach to Coping with Stressful Events”) , online resources, (such as the National Library of Medicine site “https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33474778/” or Frontier webpage “https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/6807/dyadic-coping” (or this site, of course) and professional tools that relationship experts provide these days (search for a therapist or life coach near you with experience on dyadic coping). They can serve as a kind of access road down which busy couples can travel to reach the effective dyadic coping skills needed to make their relationship both strong and resilient.
In addition, workshops and seminars that aim to build strong relationships often address dyadic coping (again, search for a group, therapist, or coach with knowledge of the topic near you). While participating in these sessions, couples can engage in valuable learning experiences and practice open dialogues about their stress management skills. Topics covered typically include what dyadic coping is, why it’s important, and how to do it more effectively in the context of a romantic relationship.
Couples can turn to an even more valuable resource when they face tough times: professional counseling. Counselors who specialize in couples’ issues work wonders with the almost infinite variety and combinations of human relationships. These professionals focus almost exclusively on understanding the unique nature of each couple. They enter the scene working for the good of the relationship, with no bias for or against either partner. Counselors first help couples understand themselves better, with all the standard tools of psychology that help a couple see and then hear what their relationship is really about.
Conclusion
As the imposter phenomenon can shift one’s focus towards a spinal of negative thoughts, they can lean on their partner for support, redirection, and even guidance. Dyadic coping does just that. The phenomenon of dyadic coping is not merely an abstract concept, nor is it just a goal for couples to achieve. It is a loving source to aid with individual and communal challenges, whereas the IP can have an affect on both. Dyadic copinng is a clear and present pathway that partners can take to improve their relationship, better equip themselves for the complexities of life, and render their connection more resilient over the long haul. It is the quintessence of partnership.
This article has taken a multifactorial look at what dyadic coping is, what it means, and what it “does” for couples. We explored its significant scientific underpinnings, its practical application in the “real world,” and its relation to another important couple phenomenon called communication.
The ongoing journey towards perfecting dyadic coping is part of the daily routine of our lives and our intimate relationships. It takes continuous work, a lot of understanding, and ample amounts of time to master this art.
But the rewards are so worth it! We have moved past simply “getting by” in our relationship when stressful situations arise, to being so much more connected to each other in the calm of everyday life and being able to resolve those situations in a way that doesn’t leave shadows over our heads for any amount of time.
Fortunately, the way forward is open to all as long as they are ready to invest the time and energy necessary. The resources available to anyone so interested are abundant, ranging from the self-help variety of books and workshops to the skilled support of counseling. Last but not least, this … means not going it alone, as many as half of us experience a course in the mastery of dyadic coping alongside us in our lifetime.
The push toward that mastery does not harbor a delusion that we can come through life without challenges; the path we are on offers up some customizable (to our relationship) tools that can help us maintain connection and resilience when difficulties arise.
References:
- Badr, H., & Acitelli, L. K. (2017). Re-thinking dyadic coping in the context of chronic illness. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 44-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.03.001
- Bergstraesser, E., Inglin, S., Hornung, R., & Landolt, M. A. (2014). Dyadic coping of parents after the death of a child. Death Studies, 39(3), 128-138. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2014.920434
- Bertschi, I. C., Meier, F., & Bodenmann, G. (2021). Disability as an interpersonal experience: A systematic review on dyadic challenges and dyadic coping when one partner has a chronic physical or sensory impairment. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.624609
- Bodenmann, G. (1997). Dyadic coping: A systemic-transactional view of stress and coping among couples: Theory and empirical findings. European Review of Applied Psychology, 47, 137–141.
- Bodenmann, G. (2000). Stress und coping bei paaren. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
- Bodenmann, G. (2005). Dyadic coping and its significance for marital functioning. In T. A. Revenson, K. Kayser, & G. Bodenmann (Eds.), Couples coping with stress: Emerging perspectives on dyadic coping (pp. 33–49). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11031-002
- Bodenmann, G. (2008). Dyadisches coping inventor: Testmanual [Dyadic coping inventory: Test manual]. Huber. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Guy-Bodenmann/publication/323285418_Dyadic_Coping_Inventory/links/5a901eeea6fdccecff00ce52/Dyadic-Coping-Inventory.pdf
- Bodenmann, G., Arista, L. J., Walsh, K. J., & Randall, A. K. (2018). Dyadic coping inventory. Encyclopedia of couple and family therapy, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_678-1
- Bodenmann, G., Cina, A., & Schwerzmann, S. (2001). Individual and dyadic coping resources in depressives. Journal of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 30(3), 194-203.
- Falconier, M. K., & Kuhn, R. (2019). Dyadic coping in couples: A conceptual integration and a review of the empirical literature. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 571. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00571
- Hilpert, P., Randall, A. K., Sorokowski, P., Atkins, D. C., Sorokowska, A., Ahmadi, K., Aghraibeh, A. M., Aryeetey, R., Bertoni, A., Bettache, K., Błażejewska, M., Bodenmann, G., Borders, J., Bortolini, T. S., Butovskaya, M., Castro, F. N., Cetinkaya, H., Cunha, D., David, O. A., . . . Yoo, G. (2016). The associations of dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction carry between and within nations: A 35-nation study. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01106
- Lyons, R. F., Mickelson, K. D., Sullivan, M. J., & Coyne, J. C. (1998). Coping as a communal process. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(5), 579-605. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407598155001
- Rafaeli, E., & Gleason, M. E. (2009). Skilled support within intimate relationships. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 1(1), 20-37. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-2589.2009.00003.x
