PREPARE/ENRICH Australia Blog

Ordinary, mundane and fleeting moments of humour and playfulness that couples experience in their everyday lives together may have a great impact upon the health of their relationship. Such moments may provide a foundation for handling more significant events such as handling conflict.

What is Idealistic Distortion? Idealism is the “act or practice of envisioning things in an ideal form.” Idealistic Distortion is the tendency to see a relationship in an overly positive manner - i.e. seeing the relationship through rose-coloured glasses.

A recent follow-up study by Elizabeth Schilling , Donald Baucom, Charles Burnett, Elizabeth Allen and Lynelle Ragland (2003) of premarital couples participating in a relationship enhancement program, found that couples participating in the program significantly increased their communication, with both men and women increasing their positive communication and decreasing their negative communication (Altering the Course of Marriage: The Effect of PREP Communication Skills Acquisition on Couples' Risk of Becoming Maritally Distressed, Journal of Family Psychology, 17, 41–53).