Comenzar terapia de pareja/matrimonial frente a no acudir a terapia de pareja
Si actúas
Asistir a terapia de pareja
27%
Si no actúas
No buscar terapia de pareja
33%
Porcentaje de quienes luego se arrepienten de cada elección. Las barras y el registro completo aparecen abajo.
Familia
Última revisión 2026-05-22
Calidad de la evidencia 4.38/5
Puntuación de revisión en ocho dimensiones según la
rúbrica de calidad
. Cada dimensión puntuada de 1 a 5.
D1 Verificación de fuentes
5/5
D2 Autoridad e independencia de las fuentes
5/5
D3 Precisión de la tasa de arrepentimiento
4/5
D4 Comparabilidad de las fuentes
2/5
D5 Patrón de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Calidad de la prosa
5/5
D7 Completitud de las advertencias
5/5
D8 Calidad de la muestra
4/5
Media4.38/5
Datos sustitutos — no existe ninguna encuesta directa sobre el arrepentimiento para esta decisión. Las tasas se derivan de puntuaciones de satisfacción y datos de barreras de acceso en lugar de preguntas que preguntaban directamente sobre el arrepentimiento. Ver advertencias más abajo.
Arrepentimiento por acción
Asistir a terapia de pareja
27%
~29% de las parejas que asisten a terapia se divorcian o muestran deterioro clínicamente significativo dentro de 5 años (proxy basado en resultado para arrepentimiento)
Parejas casadas seriamente angustiadas inscritas en ensayos controlados aleatorios de terapia de pareja, muestras clínicas de EE.UU.
seguimiento de 5 años después del fin del tratamiento
Arrepentimiento por inacción
No buscar terapia de pareja
33%
~42% de las parejas que nunca asisten a terapia de pareja enfrentan divorcio o angustia relacional no resuelta (proxy para arrepentimiento por inacción)
Parejas casadas angustiadas que no buscan terapia de pareja, con datos de resultados extraídos de controles sin tratamiento y datos de divorcio de la población de EE.UU.
transversal y longitudinal; múltiples ventanas de estudio
% que se arrepienten de esta elección
Asistir a terapia de parejaNo buscar terapia de pareja
27%33%
inaction dominates — Domina la inacción — la mayoría se arrepiente de no actuar.
Decisiones relacionadas
Decisiones semánticamente similares — mismo terreno, distintos compromisos.
Among couples who entered couple therapy in the most rigorous available randomised trial, 26-28% were separated or divorced at the 5-year follow-up, and only 48% showed sustained clinically significant improvement (Christensen et al., 2010, n=134 chronically distressed couples). Among US adults broadly, 66% have never attended or considered couple therapy (Grow Therapy/YouGov, December 2025, n=2,514), and nationally about a third of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 10 years (CDC/NCHS, National Survey of Family Growth) — a structural floor for the harm distressed non-attenders face, since deterioration among that sub-population runs higher still. The bilateral comparison points consistently toward inaction dominating: couples who do not seek help rarely improve on their own, and relationship distress compounds over the 2.68 years (Doherty et al., 2021, n=270) the average help-seeking couple waits before entering therapy — let alone for the much larger group that never goes at all.
The action-side data require careful reading. The Christensen trial recruited seriously and chronically distressed couples who volunteered for a clinical research program — a help-motivated, high-distress sample unlikely to represent the full range of couples who attend therapy in everyday clinical practice. Of the 26-28% who divorced within 5 years, many had entered therapy precisely to manage an already-failing relationship; the Grow Therapy survey finding that 56% of divorced therapy-attenders described their attendance as “a final attempt to prevent a split” suggests purposeful rather than regret-laden attendance. At the same time, only 56% of couples who showed clinically significant improvement at end of treatment maintained that improvement at the 5-year mark (Baucom et al., 2015), confirming that gains are not durable for a substantial minority. The 27% action-side proxy is the directly-measured separation/divorce rate; because only 48% of couples showed durable improvement, it likely understates outcome-based regret rather than overstating it.
The inaction side is harder to measure directly because no large-scale survey asks people who never attended therapy whether they regret that decision. The 33% inaction proxy is the CDC/NCHS National Survey of Family Growth probability that a first marriage ends in separation or divorce within 10 years, used as a conservative structural floor: distressed couples who receive no treatment rarely improve on their own, meaning actual deterioration or dissolution among relationship-distressed non-attenders is higher than this all-first-marriage figure. The 6-percentage-point inaction-dominance gap should not be read as a precise effect size; the uncertainty on the inaction side is wide and the true rate for distressed non-attenders is likely substantially higher than 33%. Both the action and inaction estimates share a common limitation: they reflect outcomes, not regret, and outcome data systematically miss the couples who were distressed, never sought help, and eventually experienced relationship improvement that made them glad they never went.
Fuentes: acción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
2/2 fuentes verificadas de forma independiente palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada
[1]Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology — Marital Status and Satisfaction Five Years Following a Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing Traditional Versus Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy
Verificado
Revisado por pares
At 5-year follow-up, 25.7% of IBCT and 27.9% of TBCT couples were separated or divorced; 48% (combined average) showed clinically significant improvement; effect sizes d=1.03 (IBCT) and d=0.92 (TBCT) for satisfaction vs pretreatment
Extracto
“"At 5-year follow-up for marital satisfaction relative to pretreatment, effect sizes were d = 1.03 for IBCT and d = 0.92 for TBCT; 50.0% of IBCT couples and 45.9% of TBCT couples showed clinically significant improvement. 25.7% of IBCT couples and 27.9% of TBCT couples were separated or divorced."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2010-04-01
Accedido
2026-05-22
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
Christensen, Atkins, Baucom & Yi (2010), Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2):225-235. PMID 20350033. RCT of 134 seriously and chronically distressed married couples randomly assigned to ~8 months of IBCT or TBCT. At 5-year follow-up, marital status was obtained for all 134 couples; at least one partner in 119 (89%) completed satisfaction measures. Combined separation/divorce rate: (25.7 + 27.9) / 2 = 26.8%, rounded to 0.27 — this directly-measured separation/divorce rate is the action-side regret proxy. The separation/divorce outcome does not capture direct regret: a couple that divorces may still regard entering therapy as the right decision, and a couple that remains together but is unhappy may deeply regret having gone. Only 48% (combined) showed clinically significant improvement at 5 years, so the 0.27 proxy likely understates the share who regret the outcome; it is retained as the sole directly-measured figure rather than inflated with an unmeasured deterioration adjustment.
[2]Journal of Family Psychology (PMC) — Prediction of Treatment Response at 5-year Follow-up in a Randomized Clinical Trial of Behaviorally Based Couple Therapies
Verificado
Revisado por pares
Only 56% of couples who showed clinically significant improvement at treatment termination still showed improvement at the 5-year follow-up; substantial between-couple variability in long-term outcomes
Extracto
“"Only 56% of couples who reported clinically significant improvement or recovery at treatment termination also reported clinically significant improvement or recovery at the five year follow-up."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2015-01-01
Accedido
2026-05-22
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
Baucom, Atkins, Rowe, Doss & Christensen (2015), Journal of Family Psychology, 28(5):711-720. PMC4324126. Same 134-couple RCT dataset with 5-year follow-up data from Christensen et al. (2010). The 56% figure (of those who improved at end of treatment, only 56% maintained improvement at 5 years) corroborates the action-side durability caveat: even among couples who responded to therapy, relapse is common. This source is included to show that the action-side regret proxy (0.27) may understate outcome-based regret given the high rate of deterioration even among initial treatment responders; it does not independently generate the 0.27 figure.
Fuentes: inacción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
[1]Grow Therapy / YouGov — 2026 Couples Therapy Survey: Growing Stronger Together
Fuente de referencia
Survey of 2,514 US adults (YouGov, December 2025): 66% have never attended couple therapy and never considered it; 56% of divorced therapy-attenders described it as a final attempt to prevent a split; 19% realized their relationship was no longer sustainable after attending
Extracto
“"71% saw noticeable improvement in their relationship. 19% realized their relationship was no longer sustainable after attending. 66% have never attended and never considered it. 56% of divorced individuals tried couples therapy described their attendance as a final attempt to prevent a split."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2025-12-22
Accedido
2026-05-22
Cálculo
Grow Therapy / YouGov online panel, n=2,514 US adults 18+, fieldwork December 18-22, 2025, weighted to represent US adult population. This survey establishes the help-seeking context for the inaction side: 66% of US adults have never attended and never considered couple therapy, and 19% of those who did attend realized their relationship was no longer sustainable. The survey does NOT report a divorce or regret rate for non-attenders, so it cannot by itself fix the inaction-side proxy. The inaction regret rate (0.33) is therefore grounded in the CDC/NCHS National Survey of Family Growth (added as a co-source below): the probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce is 33% within 10 years. That directly-measured national dissolution rate is used as a structural floor for the inaction outcome. Because distressed couples who never seek therapy dissolve at higher rates than the general first-marriage population (see caveats), 0.33 is a conservative lower bound, not a central estimate. No large-scale survey directly asks non-attenders whether they regret not having sought therapy; the inaction proxy therefore substitutes the measurable dissolution outcome for unmeasured regret.
[2]CDC / National Center for Health Statistics — Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States (NCHS, National Survey of Family Growth)
Informe gubernamental
Probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce is 20% within 5 years and 33% within 10 years (National Survey of Family Growth)
Extracto
“"The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within 5 years is 20 percent... After 10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33 percent."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2002-07-01
Accedido
2026-07-10
Cálculo
CDC/NCHS, Vital and Health Statistics Series 23, Number 22 (July 2002), "Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States," based on the National Survey of Family Growth, cited verbatim via the NCHS blog (blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2007/07/06/7111/). The 10-year first-marriage separation/divorce probability of 33% is used directly as the inaction-side regret proxy (0.33): a nationally-measured dissolution outcome standing in as a structural floor for the relationship harm experienced by couples who do not seek therapy. This is the authoritative figure that replaces the previously-displayed 0.42, which had been anchored to an uncited "~39-42%" estimate not present in this entry's sources. Distressed non-attenders (the sub-population most relevant to this decision) dissolve at higher rates than the all-first-marriage average, so 0.33 is a conservative lower bound rather than a central estimate for that group.
[3]Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (Wiley) — How long do people wait before seeking couples therapy? A research note
Revisado por pares
First large-sample study on delay: average 2.68 years from onset of serious relationship problems to entering couple therapy (N=270 couples); majority entered within 2 years, challenging the widely cited but unsupported 6-year figure
Extracto
“"We found an average interval of 2.68 years from onset of problems and entering couples therapy, with the great majority of couples entering therapy within two years."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2021-01-06
Accedido
2026-05-22
Cálculo
Doherty WJ, Harris SM, Hall EL, Hubbard AK (2021), Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 47(4):882-890. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12479. PMID 33411353. N=270 couples attending couple therapy, N=101 in individual therapy for relationship problems. This study is included as the inaction-side corroborating source because the 2.68-year average delay shows that even couples who eventually seek help do so after extended periods of unresolved distress. For the much larger share of distressed couples who never seek therapy at all (66% per the Grow Therapy/YouGov survey), the period of unresolved distress is indefinite. This supports the inaction regret direction: delayed or absent help-seeking is the modal behaviour, and the accumulated period of relationship deterioration before entry (or without it) is the most plausible source of inaction regret.
Advertencias
MEDICIONES PROXY EN AMBOS LADOS. Ningún lado usa una encuesta directa de arrepentimiento. La tasa del lado de acción (0,29) se extrae del seguimiento RCT de 5 años de Christensen et al. de 134 parejas casadas seriamente y crónicamente angustiadas. El divorcio o deterioro no es equivalente a lamentar haber asistido a terapia: las parejas que entraron a terapia específicamente para manejar una separación saludable pueden no lamentar ir. La tasa del lado de inacción (0,42) está anclada a la tasa de divorcio de la población de EE.UU. (~39-42%, CDC/NCHS) como un límite inferior estructural. Ninguna encuesta nacionalmente representativa a gran escala mide directamente el arrepentimiento entre parejas que nunca buscaron terapia. Las dos poblaciones no son directamente comparables: el lado de acción se extrae de un RCT de 134 parejas crónicamente y seriamente angustiadas que se ofrecieron voluntariamente para un ensayo clínico, mientras que el lado de inacción se infiere de la población adulta de EE.UU. incluyendo parejas cuyas relaciones no están en angustia aguda. Esta entrada es distinta de therapy-vs-no-therapy.mdx (terapia individual): la terapia de pareja requiere la participación simultánea de ambos socios y está contraindicada en situaciones activas de violencia doméstica.
