© GlobalStock Grateful couple

Relationship experts—aka your best girlfriends—will tell you that a) every couple argues and b) the more stressed out you are, the more you'll argue. Facts of life, I'm pretty sure. I'm also pretty sure it's not just me who feels like it's a lot easier to pick a fight about why the dishes aren't done than to think to thank your partner when the dishes are done—especially if it's after an extra-long commute, a failed attempt at a new recipe, a botched job interview. Not that I'm speaking from experience.

We all get a little bit lazy about letting the ones we love know exactly how much we appreciate them. Reversing those momentary lapses, however, might be key, according to a new study from the University of Georgia. Not surprisingly, feeling valued and acknowledged by your partner is a good sign things are going strong. In fact, feeling appreciated by a spouse was the most consistent predictor of how happy people were in their marriages in the new research, published in the journal Family and Relationships.

Going back 10 or 15 years, researchers began noting that grateful people had stronger, happier relationships, says Allen W. Barton, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Family Research at the University of Georgia in Athens and the lead author of the current study. Feeling that your spouse was grateful, on the other hand, hasn't been examined all that closely, he says. "It's one thing to be grateful, but it's another to feel appreciated." (Make YOUR well-being a priority this year! Join Prevention and other leading minds in health & wellness for our annual R3 Summit.)

In the study, Barton and colleagues interviewed 468 married people ages 21 to 86 over the phone. They chatted about their finances and how much money stressed them out. They chatted about the communication styles they used with their partners and how often they told each other they appreciate one another. Then they ranked how happy they felt in their marriages and how much (or, as the case may be, how little) they wanted to get divorced. Even if they were stressed out about bigger qualms than the dishes, if they felt appreciated by one another, couples were more likely to rate their union as a happy and stable one.

It makes sense, says Stacy Kaiser, a licensed psychotherapist in Southern California and Live Happy editor at large. "A person who is truly aware of what they appreciate in their partner will have a tendency to express more kindness, more peaceful interactions, and more positivity, both verbally and non-verbally," she says.

The key to making this little appreciation trick work for you and your mate, Barton says, is not necessarily expressing more gratitude (although that never hurts, amiright?) but actually asking your partner how you can do a better job of showing appreciation. "It's a pretty simple question that seems to have a pretty big effect on couples," he says. Maybe your husband really wishes you were more appreciative of his master grilling skills, while you wish he was more invested in your work—but you've kept those wants quietly to yourselves. "I don't think couples typically ask, 'What makes you feel appreciated?'" Barton says. Sure, it might not lead to a "giant revelation," he admits, but it could help you get to the bottom of nagging feelings that left under the radar could eventually rear their ugly heads.

Of course, it's easier to express gratitude and bask in those feelings of appreciation when life is already peachy keen. "The challenge is when things aren't going well to deliberately remind yourself of things you are grateful for and appreciate in your partner," Kaiser says, "so you can shift everything toward the positive." She suggests keeping a watchful eye out for the little details that drew you to your partner in the first place: Did she just smile at you when she walked into the room? Did he just take your empty glass for you while you chatted with friends at their holiday party? "We can get acclimated to these moments," Kaiser says, like the fact that he makes the coffee every morning, no questions asked. "We forget how lucky we are that we don't have to make it ourselves."