Men who undermine their mates may "win" their marital arguments. But they're likely to "lose" their kids.
According to Clifford Notarius, Ph.D., partners who harshly criticize each other--even when the kids aren't around--are compromising their kids' adjustment.
Notarius set out to study kids whose parents were ill and compare them with children of healthy guardians. How the kids were faring three years later, however, had nothing to do with parental illness, but with how mom and dad communicated with each other--without the offspring present.
When husbands frequently engaged in harsh criticism that assumed knowledge of their wife's attitudes, motivation, or thoughts--for example, "You are telling me one of your filthy lies"--their kids were more likely to suffer from an array of social and psychological problems. Ditto when, in mid-argument, husbands criticized third parties not present--" . . . And your mother's no prize, either." This derails problems solving, explains Notarius, a psychologist at Catholic University.
