RESEARCH_FILE
Coping-Style Mismatch
The pattern where partners cope with infertility in different, gender-patterned ways — one confronting and seeking support, the other distancing and self-regulating — and it's the size of the gap between them, often sharpened by procedural sex on a schedule, that predicts relationship strain, not either partner's coping style on its own.
How it sounds in your head
After a negative test, one partner wants to talk it through immediately and the other wants to go quiet and get back to normal — each assumes the other cares less, when the research says this is a documented, common divergence, not a verdict on the relationship.