Matrimonial Unrest

Presented by:

Megan Ide- Psychologist

Matthew Spott- Marriage Counselor

Background

Mr. & Mrs. Hartford are a newly wed couple that are worried about their marriage because they have been having arguments.

Neither one of them know the cause. Decided to find out what causes the

arguments instead of focusing on who started the fight.

Strategy

Mr. Hartford began taking a log on a daily basis about circumstances in his life that may be resulting in fights. He focused on things such as: Amount of sleep he gets Amount of coffee he drinks Mrs. Hartford's PMS symptoms Special events, traumas or situations that are

occurring.

Observations

Mr. & Mrs. Hartford consulted the advice of myself, a psychologist and Matt a marriage counselor.

Observations, tests and hypotheses were made based on the data given.

Does not enough sleep result in a fight?

Result One

After evaluating and running the t-test it is determined that it is less likely that Mr. and Mrs. Hartford get into a fight when he has “enough” rest which is determined as 7.5 or more hours of sleep.

Does too much coffee result in a fight?

Result Two

It was concluded after evaluating the results of the test that less than 75% of the time drinking too much coffee which is 2 cups or more does not result in them often fighting.

Do PMS symptoms result in a fight?

Result Three

10 of the 20 days they fought Mrs. Hartford did in fact have these symptoms so it was concluded that as often of more than 25% of the time a fight broke out when Mrs. Hartford had PMS symptoms.

Do significant events result in a fight?

Result Four

It is determined that it does not often result in a fight when an event has occurred that day. In fact data shows that when they did have an event occur no fights broke out. So more than 25% of the time that an event happened, it did not result in a fight.

Conclusion

According to the data 20 out of the past 75 days or 25% of the time Mr. and Mrs. Hartford got into a fight.

The two main factors that resulted in the fights are a lack of sleep on Mr. Hartford’s part and uncomfortable PMS symptoms for Mrs. Hartford and fights most often or 90% of the time occurred when these events happened simultaneously.

Recommendations

It is recommended that on the days when Mrs. Hartford is having uncomfortable PMS symptoms which usually occur on 2-3 consecutive days, Mr. Hartford should be sure to get at least 7.5 hours of sleep.

Questions?