Therapy can help even very distressed married couples if both partners want to improve their marriage, says a new study.
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The study, conducted by Andrew Christensen, a UCLA professor of psychology and lead author of the study, included 134 married couples, 71 in Los Angeles and 63 in Seattle. Most were in their 30s and 40s, and slightly more than half had children.

The couples were ''chronically, seriously distressed'' and fought frequently, but they were hoping to improve their marriages.
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"We didn''t want couples who would get better on their own. We wanted couples who were consistently unhappy. We excluded almost 100 couples who wanted couple therapy but who did not meet our criteria of consistent and serious distress," Christensen said.